Shattered Images
by HunnyDu2
Summary: Steph has just returned to Trenton, more competant than ever, when her recent past, and Rangers long time past comes back to haunt them. Babefic. *Edited*
1. Chapter 1

_Disclaimer:_ _I don't own any of the characters you recognize, they all belong to the wonderful Janet Evanovich. No copyright infringement is intended._

_A/N:_ _Just before posting Chapter 20, I went through the first nineteen chapters to edit. No plot changes have been made. The editing was for spelling, word choice and continuity. _

* * *

My name is Stephanie Plum, but I'm also known as a disaster. My current disaster went by the name Joe Morelli. I was sitting in a booth at Pino's trying to get him to get him to calm down. I had just told him that it was over, permanently this time. He actually had the balls to _demand_ that I quit my job, end all contact with Ranger, take cooking classes, and marry him. Pftttt, did he actually think I'd agree? Well now his Italian side was showing.

"Cupcake, you belong with ME, not with that spic!"

"I'm not with him, and don't you _ever_ insult him in front of me again, or you will learn first hand just how comfortable I've gotten with my gun over the last few months." I heard the tone my voice had taken on, and I sounded deadly. I think my voice scared me more than Joe, but it still had the desired effect.

"You're _defending_ him." I think I saw surprise in his eyes, but it might have just been the stupidity floating around in his head.

"Damn right I'm defending him! When you tried to get me to quit my job, he supported me. When you tried to chain me down, he encouraged me to fly. And most importantly, all those times when you were off on a _**JOB**_ with Terry, HE was there for me. So you know what Joe? Fuck our relationship, Fuck your god damn wedding ring, and fuck you!"

I didn't wait for a reply that time, just walked out and peeled my explorer out of the lot. Hell, I peeled out of the state. But that was years ago, four to be exact, and today is my first time stepping foot in Trenton again. I spent the last four years working in security with some friends of mine in Mexico. I used to think that Ranger was kind of grayish. I was wrong; he wasn't even close to gray. There are people so much worse out there and no one sees it because they donate to charity, and help the elderly across the street.

Ranger. Would he still be here? Does he have a girlfriend? I'm not saying I expected him to remain celibate while I was gone, because you cannot ask a sex god not to have sex. You just can't. And Ranger is definitely the Cuban sex god. I'd rather he doesn't have a girlfriend. I think it would be better if he does.

Would he even care about me anymore? I know I'd be royally pissed at him if he left the country and didn't tell me. Actually, I probably would have been heartbroken, but it would have turned into anger eventually. Right now though, all I was feeling was hunger. Normally I would have gone to Pino's but if you want to run into people you have to go where they go, so Shorty's it is.

I took the corner booth of course, because people at your back can be dangerous. Especially since I probably have no less than a dozen people who would be happier than neutral about my death. Hopefully they're still in Mexico. About five minutes after I ordered my pizza and beer, Ranger, Tank, Lester and Bobby walked in. I got several glares for taking their booth. Ranger came and stood by the side of the booth with the other three behind him.

"Excuse me, would you mind moving to that booth?" His tone said it wasn't really a request. Guess he didn't recognize me, not that that's hard to believe. My hair was at least five inches shorter and straight, I had in a pair of those contacts that change your eye color, and I had a tattoo circling my bicep. I was also a lot more fit.

"Actually yes, I _would_ mind moving, but you're welcome to join me," I couldn't help but snicker at the look on his face. All fear the mighty Manoso.

"Look I don't know you but—" I cut him off before he could finish.

"Are you sure?"

"Excuse me?"

"That you don't know me, are you sure?" He studied me for a second before I saw a spark of recognition in his eyes.

"Babe?"

"Who else?" He pulled me out of my seat and he and the boys all gave me a hug, good thing I have more muscle than I used to, or else I might have broken. Guess that answers the question on whether or not he hates me now. The five of us managed to squeeze into the booth with Ranger and I facing Tank, Bobby and Lester.

"How are you babe? Where have you been? When did you get a tattoo?"

"Whoa, Ranger. I can only answer one question at a time." I think that's the most I've ever heard him speak at once, "I'm fine, better than when I left at least. I've been in Mexico working security with some old friends. All of us down there got the tattoo when we lost a member of our team; it's got her name woven into the pattern."

"Wow." He said as he waved over the waitress and ordered a pitcher beer and an extra pizza.

"So, why are your eyes green?" I laughed I didn't think he would notice the change in eye color

"They're just color contacts. My eyes were to easily distinguishable down there, I just haven't taken them out yet, I only flew in a few hours ago. So what about you boys, what's new up here?"

"Boss man's been missing you bomber." Lester said, earning a glare from Ranger. He missed me? I settled for a small grin.

"Yea, I missed him too. Seriously what's _new_ around here, there's got to be something?"

We spent the next forty-five minutes talking over pizza and beer. Turns out Tank is dating Lula, I had to wish him luck with that one. Bobby and Lester are still single with a new woman every Friday, not surprising, but at 28 they're gonna pass there prime soon. Not that they aren't good looking anymore, cause they're still as hot as ever, but one day they're going to wake up and be 40 and wishing they had a wife. Vinnie went through about six bounty hunters trying to replace me before he finally gave up and gave the job to Lula. Turns out that for all my incompetence I at least got my man. We were all getting ready to leave when I held Ranger back.

"Ranger you have every right to be pissed at me for leaving without talking to you first but I really need a favor."

"Of course I was upset, I wish that you would have talked to me first, let me know what was going on, but I understand. Remember who you're talking to, babe, if anyone would understand, I would. What do you need?"

"A job and a place to stay until I can get an apartment?"

"No problem babe." Suddenly his expression changed. He wasn't smiling anymore, rather, his face had gone stony and his hand was sliding toward the gun. He whispered in my ear. "A man just walked in, hand on his gun. He's extremely dangerous." Great, either this was an enemy of Ranger's, or someone had followed me home from Mexico. Either way, not good. I turned around, my eyes going wide as I saw the man in front of me.

"Shit."


	2. Chapter 2

_Disclaimer:_ _I don't own any of the characters you recognize, they all belong to the wonderful Janet Evanovich. No copyright infringement is intended._

_A/N:_ _Just before posting Chapter 20, I went through the first nineteen chapters to edit. No plot changes have been made. The editing was for spelling, word choice and continuity. _

* * *

I had my gun out before I could even register the thought that Ranger already had his gun trained on the man. Matson must be extremely pissed if he followed me into the US, after all, someone in his line of work does not take being a 'person of interest' with the FBI lightly.

"No worries Stephanie, I wasn't planning on killing you here. I just wanted to let you know I was in the area and that I would be seeing you soon." I heard Ranger release the safety.

"Ranger, you can't shoot him in public, with witnesses all around, just for being an asshole."

"Babe, do you know who that is? That's Salvador Matson, suspected of international gun running, drug dealing, and other things not so civil."

"I know who he is Ranger, did it escape your notice that he seems to think we're on a first name basis." I shot Matson a glare for good measure but he just seemed amused.

"What good do you think your guns are Stephanie, you know you won't shoot me here." I narrowed my eyes.

"No, if this were Mexico I wouldn't shoot you. Here, I have enough faith in the legal system to believe that I would at least get a fair trial." I could feel Ranger tense behind me with every comment, no doubt wondering how I got messed up with the likes of him. He was glancing between me and Matson, trying to decide what to do.

"Stay away from her." Ranger said, ushering me past Matson who was wearing the most sadistic of looks. Once we were comfortably seated in his Porsche the questions started. Silly me, hoping to avoid them.

"Well babe, you going to explain how you got involved with a guy like Salvatore Matson?"

"It's a really, really long story Ranger. Can it wait until we get back to the apartment?" I'd seen that look on his face before. "Ranger, I swear I'm not trying to get out of telling you," _liar, liar, pants on fire,_ "I just really need another beer." He took a minute to answer but he finally gave a slight nod of his head and pulled out of the lot.

"Ranger, I may ave been gone for a while, but I know this is not the way to Haywood." He gave me a smaller version of the wolf smile.

"No babe, it's really not." Oh boy. Was he starting with the innuendo already? Ten minutes of silence later and we were pulling up to a gate. He put his thumb in a gel pad, had his eye scanned by a laser _and_ entered a security code. Secure enough? The house was huge, if it even counted as a house. I wonder if this would be considered a mansion. Three stories tall, made of brick, and it looks like it's has two wings.

"Some things never change babe," he said, smirking at the expression on my face.

"Hey," I protested, "this is the batcave right here. Do you know how long I've waited to see the batcave?" He just grinned and showed me into the house.

"I'll go grab a couple of beers while you snoop." He told me as he was leaving the room. I looked around. A lot of earthy tones which didn't really surprise me, I figured his house would be black but I guess he was too sensible for that. On the wall to my right there was a fireplace surrounded by bookshelves. I had to see what batman reads. There were shelves lined with books on military strategy and war tactics…boring! On the other side of the fireplace I almost laughed, Harry Potter, Anita Blake, Buffy, Charmed and something called The Women of the Otherworld Series. He came back with two bottles of Corona, a lime in the neck of each.

"What's with this Ranger?" I asked, gesturing to the books. "I mean Harry Potter, Anita Blake, _Charmed_?" He almost rolled his eyes. Ha, I saw that, Rambo turning into a burg girl.

"They're my daughter's."

"How old is she now?" I don't know, but I bet Ranger has no clue the later Anita Blake books have sex scenes in them or I can pretty much guarantee she wouldn't be reading them.

"16, why?" Hmm, was I reading those types of novels at that age? Of Course.

"I was just trying to figure out if she was even born when Hamilton started writing that series. Guilty Pleasures, the first one, came out in 1994." He arched an eyebrow like he didn't quite believe me, but he let it go and handed me a beer.

"It's time to start explaining, babe. Not just about Matson either, about the last four years." Wahh, can't I finish my beer first. I was good, but I wasn't Ranger. There was no way I was going to get out of telling him.

"It's a long story, and I'm going to have to start from the beginning. After I broke things off with Morelli I just started driving and didn't stop. I hit Virginia before I remembered that I had some college friends who had gone into security and some other grey area stuff. I looked them up and found out they had gone to Mexico, so that was that, no looking back, I just headed to Mexico. When I got there Trish took about six months training me. For the first year and a half after that things were pretty basic, guarding tourists worried about safety, banquets, parties, and security systems." I took a deep breath and downed the rest of my Corona.

"Then we started getting contacted by the CIA asking us to covertly deliver them some people without _anyone_ else finding out. And they meant no one. Eventually it wasn't a request anymore, we were still American citizens not Mexican ones and they threatened to falsify information that would prove we were acting as traitors to the country if we didn't comply. The work we were doing required that we get in pretty deep. We ended up getting involved with a lot of different gangs, here and in Mexico, then the Mexican Mafia, and things just went down hill from there. We ended up involved with gangs all over the place, and mob contacts as far as New York. Most didn't know we had any contact with the government at all. The few who did thought we were playing the government, not the other way around."

"About 4 months into our work with the CIA Trish was killed by a group of irate gang members who found out what we were doing. That's when we got the tattoo."

"How did you manage to stay under for a little over a year if you had been found out?" I looked up, knowing my eyes were cold, blocking out any emotions I didn't want made known.

"We killed everyone who knew, before they could turn us over."


	3. Chapter 3

_Disclaimer:_ _I don't own any of the characters you recognize, they all belong to the wonderful Janet Evanovich. No copyright infringement is intended._

_A/N:_ _Just before posting Chapter 20, I went through the first nineteen chapters to edit. No plot changes have been made. The editing was for spelling, word choice and continuity. _

* * *

We sat in silence for a few minutes, and I was starting to wonder if Ranger was going to think differently of me now.

"Yes babe I am, but I'm not going to think worse of you, there's a difference. Now I think you've finally finished growing up."

"Damn ESP, and excuse me, but I was a grown up before I left!" He chuckled at me, well so glad I could be amusing. If I was standing I would stomp my foot. Which probably wouldn't have proved my point.

"That's not what I meant babe. Four years ago you would have taken the chance of getting yourself killed and now you've realized that's not always the most viable option. That doesn't really explain Matson though."

"His partner was one of the ones the CIA wanted. We managed to get Renito into CIA custody and 24 hours later his body was found just over the border on the Mexican side. A lot of gangs pointed fingers at us because we were the last ones to be seen with him, we've got dozens of people more than willing to kill us…god I shouldn't have come back here, I putting everyone in danger."

"Babe don't do that to yourself. You're not putting anyone in anymore danger than I do by living here. We can't live in a desert, away from everyone, just because we have enemies. So I'm assuming Matson is out for revenge?"

"Ranger I have to ask you something, when was the last time you had a run in with Matson?"

"What makes you think I have babe?" Well gee Ranger, I don't know, maybe it was the fact he knew we were friends.

"Ranger. He knew that we were acquainted, and he knew what I looked like before I ever encountered him. How would he have gotten that information in Mexico?"

"Babe, he's bound to have watchers up here." I rolled my eyes.

"Fine, try this on for size then. The very first time I met him he said 'I know you, you're Manoso's bitch. Well you tell Ricardo that he's next in line'. What the fuck does that mean Ranger, next in line for what?" He sighed and leaned his head back onto the chair.

"16 years ago babe. Back before I went into the army I was in some serious shit, that's one of the reasons I have so many enemies, because I switched sides. I wasn't the first to leave, five other people left, four before me one after. They swore they would kill us all in the order we left. I'm assuming that they finally managed to track and kill the other four so now it's my turn." I didn't ask what he left.

"Ranger, what happened in Quang Nam?" He drew a quick breath and looked at me sharply.

"What do you know about it babe?"

"What happened in Quang Nam, Ranger?" He sighed and I rolled my eyes, I asked first therefore he has to answer first.

"A few years into my time as a Ranger we received a tip that Matson was in somewhere Nam. We manages to trace him into Quang Nam. We had orders to get him to talk, do what ever it took, as long as he talked. We tried everything we could think of but the bastard wouldn't open his fucking mouth. We were given orders to use the son, it wasn't planned, but his son died. Later that day Matson escaped." I closed my eyes and took a deep breath. Did I like what they had done to that poor child, No. Did I understand why they did it, yes.

Then my eyes opened a little further as Matson's word hit home. _What would Manoso do if I reversed the situation from Quang Nam. What will he do when he is in the same position I was? _It explained the look at Shorty's today too when Ranger told him to stay away from me. Because Matson wasn't after me, not yet.

"Ranger! Your daughter, you need to get her up here now!"

"Babe?" he asked sounding confused and worried, "Why would I bring her up here, into the middle of everything that's going on?"

"Matson being here is just a distraction. He's got someone down there after Julie, I guarantee it. Even with Matson up here, she'd still be more secure than in Miami."

"Babe. What are you talking about, why would Matson want her?" he sounded almost panicked now, and really, who could blame him.

"He told me he was going to reverse the situation, put you in his place."

"Mierda. Si él daña a mi hija, yo lo mataré. Muy lentamente." _Shit. If he hurts my daughter, I will kill him. Very slowly._ I didn't know what to say, so I said the only thing I could.

"I would too." He tossed a cell phone at me.

"Tank's number is in there. Call him and have him arrange to have my jet flown down to Florida to pick up Julie while I call Rachel."

"When do you want it there?"

"Yesterday." He growled at me, but I knew he wasn't really mad at me just the situation and it was kind of a stupid question. I scrolled through the phone book until I found Tank's name and hit call.

"Tank?"

"What's up bombshell, why you callin' from Ric's phone?"

"Ranger wants the jet flown to Miami to pick up Julie."

"In the middle of the school year? When does he want it there? What's going on?" I looked at Ranger who was talking to Rachel, and not looking very happy. How much was I supposed to tell Tank?

"Tank were you in Quang Nam with Ranger?" He paused and the silence stretched out before he answered.

"Yes." That was it, no elaboration and his tone told me he would rather I didn't know about Quang Nam.

"Matson wants to turn the tables on Ranger, put Ranger in the same situation he was in, that means using Julie. The jet needs to be there yesterday."

"Mierda, I'm on it." and that was it, he hung up. I looked over at Ranger who was off the phone, pacing back and forth, and using language I don't think I've ever heard before, and that's saying something.

"Ranger, what's wrong?"

"Julie, she never made it home from school today."


	4. Chapter 4

_Disclaimer:_ _I don't own any of the characters you recognize, they all belong to the wonderful Janet Evanovich. No copyright infringement is intended._

_A/N:_ _Just before posting Chapter 20, I went through the first nineteen chapters to edit. No plot changes have been made. The editing was for spelling, word choice and continuity. _

* * *

"Shit." I swore softly, this poor kid. First she was kidnapped by a psycho who wanted to _be_ her dad, and then a psycho _because _of her dad. Guess that's why he always said his life doesn't lend itself to relationships. Guess that means mine doesn't either. But then, who would my psycho's go after, Grandma Mazur? She'd scare them to death. Ranger was walking back and forth swearing.

"Ranger," I said, getting no response, "Ranger!" Well he swore a little louder. Shit, I picked up his phone and called Tank again.

"Ric?"

"No, Tank, It's me. Listen, hold the jet. I think we're going to need a team down in Miami, Julie never made it home from school. Rangers," I looked over at him, not sure what to say.

"Steph what's going on?" I sighed.

"He's a little upset. Only people who know about Quang Nam I think, because it's bound to come up. Please just have a team ready in the garage at Haywood in half an hour, Tank. Please, by the time we get there, Ranger will be able to explain more. Pack light, we'll probably be moving around."

"We, you're going?"

"Half hour Tank." I hung up the phone before he could argue anymore. Guess he's not used to taking requests from anyone who isn't Ranger, especially someone he hasn't seen in four years. I looked at Ranger who had stopped swearing and was looking at me.

"Pack."

"Babe. What about you?" I rolled my eyes, what did he think I had no clothes in my car, that I had thrown them all out before I came home.

"I've got a bag it the car." I looked at my watch, "8 minutes, hurry up."

"Babe," he said before walking out of the room. Huh, guess batman doesn't like taking orders either. Oh well, sure as hell beats the hell out of standing there swearing. I checked my watch.

"Lets go, 5 minutes."

"Babe, will you knock off the batman routine already, I'm supposed to do that." Humph, Batman doesn't waist time swearing. He walked about a minute later with a backpack that probably had one change of clothes and a toothbrush, what the hell took him so long. We headed to his car.

"That was good thinking though babe. Its what I would have done once I had my shit together. It's good that you told Tank to only grab people who knew about Quang Nam. I'm gonna let Rachel know we're coming, and tell the Miami RangeMan to have cars waiting for us."

By the time Ranger had hung up with Rachel we were already in the Haywood garage. I got out of the car and saw Tank, Bobby and Lester. I nodded at the three of them and went to grab my bag out of my Cayenne Turbo…I know, I know, but its not black, its blue. I didn't even question how it got here, since I left it at the restaurant. I grabbed three guns, my sais, and a couple knives. I know it was probably overkill, but I didn't know how long we would be gone or if anything would get lost or damaged. When I got back to the guys Ranger was still on the phone, so Tank looked at me.

"Ok, so here's your team, we were all in Quang Nam. Now what's going on?"

"You all know that Matson's son died in Quang Nam, well, like I told Tank, Matson wants to put Ranger in the same situation he was in there. Julie never made it home from school today. We know Matson is here, we saw him today, but it's more likely that he'll go to Julie rather than taking the chance of transporting her farther than necessary."

"Let's roll." Ranger said and he flipped his phone shut. He looked much calmer and had his blank face on. Probably the only thing keeping him from breaking down. Ranger and I took my Cayenne – so I guess I could have left my stuff in it – and the others piled into a RangeMan SUV. Ranger was driving of course.

"What are you carrying?" I asked Ranger.

"Just my Sig Sauer and my glock, everything else was either in my weapons safe, which is on the fifth floor or down at the range. I didn't want to waste the time getting them." I rolled my eyes, Ranger never had less than three guns on him, and five minutes wouldn't have made a huge difference at this point. He could probably get another one at the Miami RangeMan, but that left a whole lot of time from here to there. I reached under the seat, pulled out my laser sight Beretta and handed it to him.

"That's one of my favorite fucking guns. Don't lose it." He laughed.

"Babe." Damn that word. "I have no clue what the fuck we're gonna do babe, he's got my fucking kid and if he hurts her the way we hurt his kid babe, I'll never forgive myself. I don't think I realized until now how it had to kill him to see what we were doing to that boy. I'd give anything to take her place right now." Wow that's the most emotional I've ever heard him get, it's not like him. But looking into his eyes, I'd take her place to. If he wasn't Ranger I'd be sure he was going to cry.

"I'll do whatever I have to do to help you get her back Ranger. And you can't be this hard on yourself. Sometimes you have to do what you have to do. I know that none of you are happy with what happened, but there's only so much you can do when you're under orders." His eyes flicked to me and he gave a small smile and nodded, acknowledging my acceptance.

After we had pulled into some small airport I hadn't even known existed, Ranger tucked the Beretta into the back of his pants, giving me the little head nod again.

The jet took off maybe a minute after we had boarded. I took my gun holsters off because they weren't the most comfortable to sit with. That was the plus, I guess, to flying private air, keeping your weapons. We spent the first 15 minutes explaining to the boys why I was going. Not that they didn't trust, or like me, but they weren't used to me being in the action. I had to explain _everything_ in order for them to believe the guns I took off weren't actually water guns in disguise.

We spent the rest of the flight planning what exactly we were going to do. We were only interrupted once by Rangers cell, you really gotta love those sat phones. Rachel wanted to let us know that the police had recovered security camera footage of a tall Hispanic man grabbing Julie and forcing her into a silver Mini-Van, license plate C16BP7. We figured the van was either stolen or ditched shortly after the capture, but it was worth looking into.

When we finally landed there were three SUV's waiting. A guy, who looked like he was no more than 20, and looked like he would rather be anywhere but here, approached Ranger.

"U-um s-sir, this vi-video tape, uh it uh, showed up on, um R-Ra-RangeMan p-property about a, a, an hour ago. S-sir." Jesus, and this kid worked for RangeMan, Christ he can't even talk to the boss without stuttering, I would hate to see him on a takedown or a 'redecorating' job.

"Jesus kid," Ranger said as he snatched the tape, "Grow a back bone or get the hell out of my office." The kid muttered something that sounded like a 'yes sir' before getting into the third SUV and leaving. Ranger was inspecting the tape and pulled a note off it.

"Shit." I grabbed the note and read it.

_She's just like you Manoso, stubborn and bitchy. How long do you think it will take to break her?_


	5. Chapter 5

_Disclaimer:_ _I don't own any of the characters you recognize, they all belong to the wonderful Janet Evanovich. No copyright infringement is intended._

_A/N:_ _Just before posting Chapter 20, I went through the first nineteen chapters to edit. No plot changes have been made. The editing was for spelling, word choice and continuity. _

* * *

_She's just like you Manoso, stubborn and bitchy. How long do you think it will take to break her?_

"We need to get to the office so I can see this tape, it might give us some clue about her location." Tank nodded and herded Lester and Bobby into one SUV while I followed Ranger into another. We drove about five miles in silence before Ranger spoke.

"I just don't know what to do. If this was anyone else I would wait until we had all the information and then go in hard and fast, but this isn't just anyone. I can't take the thought of leaving her with Matson one second longer then necessary." I nodded my head and gave one of those rueful smiles.

"We'll get her Ranger, we'll get her, and she'll be ok. How old is she now?" The second I asked the question I remembered the answer, but I'd already asked, so I stayed silent.

"She turned 16 several months ago. With her attitude I bet Matson is sorry he took her." I smiled at his attempt to lighten the mood but stopped when I saw his eyes. "But not as sorry as he will be." I just nodded taking the statement at face value. Basically, I now knew that there would be no taking Matson to the authorities before he had some alone time with Ranger, if ever. Years ago may have been a different story, but now I was ok with that. I had to be.

"I've got a cousin down in Tampa who's good at cleaning up messes, if you don't want to involve RangeMan." He looked at me and smiled.

"You know babe, when we get back to Trenton, I might just have to give you a job at RangeMan." That was the extent of our conversation until we pulled into the Miami office about ten minutes later. When we walked in the kid from the airport was at the desk. Ranger stopped the first guy we walked by, who happened to be named Rip.

"What is the deal with that kid?" Ranger asked him, and the Rip laughed.

"I know, scrawny ass thing ain't he? He's a little hard to get used to 'cause he's like a mouse among cats ya know? But he's the best hacker we got. He can get into anything, even the pentagrams mainframe." Ranger just nodded and headed for the elevator. Hmm, guess the top floor at all the buildings are his personal apartments because when we stepped out onto the tenth floor, it looked exactly like the seventh floor on Haywood.

Ranger walked over to the TV and popped the tape into the VCR. I was surprised he had one of those, wouldn't he prefer DVD's instead.

"Yes babe, I have a DVD player and a Blu-Ray."

Damn now I know he's got ESP because I stopped that whole accidentally talking out loud thing ages ago. Wasn't really a useful skill when you were working undercover. Especially under cover with gang members. I looked up as the tape started playing.

"_You be a good girl and beg for the camera. Beg us not to kill you." The girl on the tape, who looked exactly lkie her dad, looked up with a smirk on her face and she snorted._

"_Don't make me tell you again bitch." _I stopped paying attention so I didn't have to see the beating she was getting. I could hear the sounds of fists hitting her flesh, but no sounds made by her. Damn if this girl wasn't her father to the T.

"_Listen you stupid cunt, if you don't start to beg, we're gonna do a hell of a lot worse than beat you." The girl looked up with the blankest blank face Steph had ever seen._

"_Oh please, please don't kill me, pretty please no." She said, with what was obvious sarcasm._

"_Listen you stupid bitch I don't know who…"_

"_No you listen, I heard your __**stupid**__ lackeys talking and I know your plan. You won't kill me yet because you need me."_

"_You need to learn when to shut up bitch," one of the masked men said as he slashed a knife across her stomach. She yelped slightly, as though she had just been surprised by a paper cut rather than a four inch knife and turned to glare._

"_That's gonna scar." She said in a pissed off voice. She was rewarded with a few more slashes before the camera swung up and then cut off._

I looked as the camera swung up before shutting off. For a smart man, Matson's goons were not to bright. They showed a window before the shut the camera off. A window with a scene I recognized, and then I wondered if he had done it on purpose.

"Coral Springs camp grounds," I said to Ranger, "It about an hour north of here. I recognized the scene outside the cabin, it's the same one we used to rent when I was little. He's trying to screw with me while he's after you. Two for the price of one. Oh and Ranger," I added, "She _really, really_ is your daughter."

"Babe," he said the corners of his mouth tipping slightly before he turned to face the room. "Alright, notify control where we're going and then let's move out."

The drive down to Coral Springs was quiet with the same driving arrangements as before. Once we hit the town I directed Ranger to the campground with the other SUV following. It didn't take long to find the cabin that I used to rent and verify that the surroundings outside matched what had been seen in the movie. We didn't get to close to the cabin though.

"Alright, Tank you take the side door, Lester and Bobby you guys take the back, Steph and I will take the front. Once you get into position wait for my go," Ranger said in a voice strained with worry. We all headed to our positions wondering what we would find inside.

"Now!" Ranger shouted, well, a shout for him, and we all headed in. I followed behind Ranger, respecting that he needed to go in first. When nothing happened I moved up beside him. The only noise was Lester shouting "Clear!" from the bedroom and Tanks echo from the loft. I moved onto the kitchen; the only room that had a view the same as the one from the video.

"I got a note," I said, as a saw a white paper with black writing on the kitchen table. Ranger moved up beside me, looking over my shoulder.

_Did you like my choice of Venue's Stephanie? You're too late to find us. You shouldn't have let me known you were coming._


	6. Chapter 6

_Disclaimer:_ _I don't own any of the characters you recognize, they all belong to the wonderful Janet Evanovich. No copyright infringement is intended._

_A/N:_ _Just before posting Chapter 20, I went through the first nineteen chapters to edit. No plot changes have been made. The editing was for spelling, word choice and continuity. _

* * *

_Did you like my choice of Venue's Stephanie? You're too late to find us. You shouldn't have let me known you were coming_

"How the hell did he know we were coming?" Ranger snapped. I wasn't sure if it was an actual question or an expression of anger.

"Ranger, man," Lester said as he walked out of he bedroom, "he couldn't have known, he's just trying to unbalance you."

"Unless there's a…"

"No." Ranger's tone left no room for discussion "It's not one of ours."

There was no discussion on the way back to Miami and I know that Ranger was resenting the fact that Bobby would even suggest their was a traitor amongst the RangeMen. Would anyone even be stupid enough to turn against Ranger? 55 minutes later and we were pulling into the garage at RangeMan. Before I could get out Ranger stopped me.

"Babe. I appreciate what you're doing for me, but this is going to be bad. I can feel it. I just thought I would tell you incase…"

"Ranger, I'm not going anywhere. I'd do anything for you, you know that." He looked at me with something that looked almost like sorrow in his eyes.

"It's been along time, babe." I looked at him and smiled, hopefully a reassuring one.

"Some things never change." He smiled back at me, but it wasn't his best smile, and I knew it was because of his daughter. I wanted him to be able to truly smile again. We got out of the SUV and headed for the building. This time when we walked by the guards they stopped Ranger.

"Boss, this came for you about five minutes ago. It's been scanned for bombs." Ranger took the envelope and looked at it like it was worst thing in the world. For him, it probably was. He opened the envelope.

"Another tape." I closed my eyes and put my hand on his back, rubbing in small circles while directing him to his apartment. This time Tank, Lester and Bobby weren't in the room when we watched the tape. The second the tape started I looked away; as different as I had become I wasn't going to watch a young girl being raped, especially not little Julie. Ranger grabbed my hand and I was pretty sure it was going to break but I wasn't going to pull away. Even though I wasn't watching I still heard the venom in her voice as she said "fuck you" before the tape cut to static.

"I recognized the place babe, saw a sign through the window. It's a little trailer park in Hallandale, Sunny Acres."

"Jesus, he's doing this on purpose." Ranger looked at me, his unspoken question reflected in he eyes, "Choosing places he knows I'll be familiar with. That's where my aunt used to live. Let's go before the bastard leaves again."

"I'm going to let control know where we're going," I looked at him sharply even if he didn't want to believe it…but his eyes and posture told me not to say anything. "Will you go get the guys? They should be on the fifth floor in the break room." I nodded and walked out, knowing that if I stayed any longer I would say something about an inside leak.

I took the elevator down to the fifth floor, and it didn't take long to find the break room. I rolled my eyes when I walked in, they were arm wrestling. Honestly, they were all built the size of freaking Rambo, did it matter who won at arm wrestling.

"What's up Beautiful?" Lester asked as he managed to beat Bobby. I rolled my eyes.

"We got a new location, we're moving out."

"Where we headed?" Tank asked as we took the elevator down to the garage.

"Trailer park in Hallandale." By the look on his face I could tell Bobby wanted to ask if Control knew where we were going. Before he could the elevator opened to the garage and Ranger stood there waiting. I knew Bobby wouldn't ask in front of Ranger so as Ranger turned and headed to the SUV I nodded my head yes to Bobby, hoping he understood. I heard him mutter something about 'damn ESP' and I couldn't help it, I threw back my head and laughed.

"Babe?" Ranger said when he heard me. I looked at him with a smile.

"Just that damn ESP."

That was the extent of all conversation until we reached Hallandale, which took just under a half hour. We left the SUV's just outside of the trailer park, and went in on foot. We walked around until Ranger found a trailer that would have the same view of the sign he had from the movie. The trailer had a front door, a back door, and no windows that anyone had a hope of getting out of.

"Alright, Tank go in through the back door, Steph you come in the front with me, Bobby, Lester, make sure no one gets out those doors. Move."

Bobby and Tank went around back while Lester moved into place after Ranger and I moved to the front door. It didn't take long to find that the trailer was empty.

"Check the table." Ranger said, remembering that was where the last note was found. I walked over to the table, and closed my eyes. There was a note and a lock of hair.

_And once again Manoso you let me know you were coming, keep missing me and you'll start to find more important parts left behind. Do you recognize the trailer Stephanie? I believe it used to belong to a Mary Plum. Where is good old Mary now anyway?_


	7. Chapter 7

_Disclaimer:_ _I don't own any of the characters you recognize, they all belong to the wonderful Janet Evanovich. No copyright infringement is intended._

_A/N:_ _Just before posting Chapter 20, I went through the first nineteen chapters to edit. No plot changes have been made. The editing was for spelling, word choice and continuity. _

* * *

_And once again Manoso you let me know you were coming, keep missing me and you'll start to find more important parts left behind. Do you recognize the trailer Stephanie? I believe it used to belong to a Mary Plum. Where is good old Mary now anyway?_

I was seeing little black dots, and had to take a few deep breaths to clear my vision. I stood there wondering if Aunt Mary had moved or if Matson had her. I didn't like the second possibility. I looked around, but the stuff could have belonged to any woman. I took out my cell phone and called Daddy, not the house but his cell. I wanted this conversation kept away from my mother and Dad wouldn't answer his cell in front of her because she doesn't know he has it. He answered after only one ring so I assumed he was driving his cab today.

"Hey Daddy."

"Hi Sweetheart, what do you need?" What do I need? I need a lot of things, but I didn't think he could give them to me so I settled for the obvious.

"Where's Aunt Mary living now?"

"A little trailer park in Hallandale. Why do you ask?" Shit, shit, shit. Ok breathe, I can do this, it'll be fine. If Ranger can keep a cool head with his daughter missing I can handle this. Ok, granted, Ranger freaked out when he found out about Julie, but time is not a luxury here, so I can't waste it.

"Oh, uh, no reason dad. I was just down in Florida for work and I thought I'd drop by if she still lived there. I'm headed into a forest though, I think I'm going to lose you, bye Dad, love you."

"I love you too, Sweetie. Remember, you can always call me if you're in trouble." He hung up before I could respond. Guess he didn't buy the 'just wanted to drop by excuse'. Oh well. I took a deep breath and turned to Ranger.

"He's got my aunt too. Ranger I know you don't want to hear it, not from your men and certainly not from me, but I think you need to face the possibility. This may be an inside job, this is twice now that he's moved out on us. We couldn't have missed them by more then 10 minutes."

"How can you know that babe? They could have made that tape yesterday but not given it to us until today. There's no way to know." He had his blank face on, not showing anything. I looked over at the stove.

"Unless the friendly ghost dropped by recently they just left. The stove is still warm. My aunt still owns this place and I know her, she won't give a spare key to _anyone_. She's scared to death that some 'gang-banging hoodlum' is going to come after her because of her son. If it had been her here she would have found the note." Although he nodded his acceptance to what I was saying I saw the corners of his mouth quirk a little at the 'gang-banging hoodlum' comment.

"Her son the cousin that's good at cleaning up messes?" he asked.

"That's him." I answered distractedly as I scanned my memory for other places in Florida with a connection to me. I could only come up with two places. My cousins place and Disney world. If he went after my cousin then we would have seen the fireworks from here, and Disney didn't seem like a probable place for anything they had planned.

"I know that look babe, what are you thinking?"

"That there's no place left in Florida with a connection to me that he would use. He's either going to have to leave the state or stop picking familiar places."

"Considering that he must have inside help," I noticed him tense up at this comment, it was almost imperceptible, but I still picked it up, "I don't think that he would leave the area." He turned to Lester.

"Les, get your equipment out scan all the RangeMan phones and E-mail accounts. I want to know who the fuck thinks they are going to get away with this shit. Set up in the trailer, we won't be going back to the office until we know." Lester nodded his head.

"I'll start on it, but with just me this could take up to day." Ranger's face went from slightly angry to annoyed and pissed.

"Not good enough."

"Boss, there's nothing else I can do unless you want me sending up red flags. I'm going to have a hard enough time getting one system in from an outside source never mind more than that, and I don't have a printer so we can all scan the records, I have to do it one by one on the screen." Ranger looked ready to explode and I looked at him and sighed.

"There's a hole in the security, I meant to tell you about it when I got back but with everything that happened…" I let the sentence trail off, my meaning clear. "I found it when I was looking for a way to feed you information…" Lester cut me off.

"The files that were just appearing on the areas crime lords? That was you?"

"Yes, but not the time Lester. Anyway, if you use that point you should only have minor trouble getting everyone in."

"Jesus babe, you didn't think that maybe _that_ was how Matson was getting his information?" I went to answer but Lester beat me to it.

"Not enough time and even if he had been it would mean that someone was purposely putting the info out there and we'd be back in the same situation."

Four hours and a lot of E-mails later we had nothing. Ranger and Tank were going over the company cell records but so far everything looked clean. It was getting dark and it had been a long time since any of us slept. I stood up and walked to the counter putting a pot of coffee on. When it was done I didn't bother asking how anyone took it, chances are they were going to want it black so I just poured the mugs and went back to work.

Hours later, around three in the morning the door slammed open. Every gun in the trailer was drawn and aimed at the door before whoever had kicked it in could even get through the door. As he walked through the door and saw the guns he tensed up, and I smiled when I saw his face. He looked around and relaxed when he saw me, which was about the same time Ranger started talking.

"You better start explaining who the fuck you are before I blow your fucking head off." The man in the door quirked his eyebrow at me and raised his hands in an 'I give' gesture. I put down my gun and looked at the guys.

"It's alright Ranger," I said sighing, "It's just Bo." He looked at me as if to say who the hell is Bo so I clarified. "The cousin who's good with messes."


	8. Chapter 8

_Disclaimer:_ _I don't own any of the characters you recognize, they all belong to the wonderful Janet Evanovich. No copyright infringement is intended._

_A/N:_ _Just before posting Chapter 20, I went through the first nineteen chapters to edit. No plot changes have been made. The editing was for spelling, word choice and continuity. _

* * *

After I explained to Ranger I turned to Bo who was standing there with his usual expression on. A combination of Rangers blank face, and an 'I'll blow your fucking head off' face. It was a strange combination, and I didn't even want to think of how it was possible.

"Now that no one is going to kill you, you want to explain why you're here at," I looked at my watch, "Three in the morning, and why you couldn't just knock like a normal fucking person visiting their mother?" He rolled his eyes at me. So maybe it was as much a Plum trait as it was a Jersey trait.

"I did knock, three times. As for why…" I cut him off while looking around at the boys.

"Did any of you hear a knock?" Everyone shook their head no, and I knew that tired or not at _least_ one of us would have caught a knock. I turned to Bo and raised my eyebrows. He shrugged one shoulder in a smooth gesture.

"Ok, so maybe I didn't knock, I was concerned. I got a note from some psycho about mom. What's going on here?" he finally asked, looking around at all of us and the equipment.

"Lemme see the note Bo."

"What the fuck is going on _little cuz_?" I sighed, not really knowing how to tell him, so I went with the direct approach.

"Aunt Mary has been kidnapped again, Bo. From what we can figure she was taken around seven tonight but was most likely held captive here for sometime before that." He muttered a couple of swears and then glanced around the room with realization in his eyes.

"It's not my fault this time is it? This is because of your and your fucked up dealings in Mexico, isn't it?" Before I could respond or Bo could make any more comments Ranger looked at me.

"Again?" he asked quietly. I glanced at Bo who glared at me. Five years ago that look would have had me running from the room and he knew it. Finally he nodded.

"About three years ago Aunt Mary was taken by The Fangs. Bo had some…bad dealings with them, instead of striking at him directly they took his mother. Me and the guys from Mexico as well as some old friends of Bo's came to help find her. It took weeks, and all of our combined resources…"

"I've had dealings with the Fangs babe, they shouldn't be that hard to find or to deal with." I just looked at him and started over from the beginning of that sentence, saying it a little more forcefully than necessary.

"It took weeks and all of our combined resources to find her. When we did we found out that the Fangs had formed a loose alliance with The Governors."

"Shit, you don't mean the political ones that are voted in by the people, do you?" I shook my head no. The Governors were known to very few circles. They were the Elite of the Elite in crime lords for the whole Southeast, some of the Southwest, and most of Central America. Anyone who knew about them either worked for them, had someone who was taken out by them, or ran from them. It was that simple. The Governors were not nice people either, if they took you out it wouldn't be a bullet to the head. When they took someone out the body was hardly ever recognizable through all the damage it had taken. We had gotten to Aunt Mary before to much damage had been done; she would carry a few scars forever but her spirit wasn't broken. The first thing she had said to Bo was 'at least it wasn't gang-banging hoodlums'. Then, when we got her away from the place she screamed at all of us for hours about how stupid we were and how it was all our fault. Good thing she was from my dad's side, because if she was from my moms side we never would have gotten out of there. When I looked up at Ranger he was giving me a funny look.

"Babe, you see the connection?" I looked around to Tank, Bobby and Lester but since their faces were confused I assumed that Rangers dealings with The Governors didn't involve them, so they would be no help. I racked my brain for several minutes trying to find the connection in all this. A minute later I looked up and he nodded. I dropped my head into my arms; Matson was one of The Governors, I don't know how I didn't make that connection earlier. I never saw him with them but now that I think about it, his name was mentioned several times. Everyone else was looking at us but Lester spoke first.

"Are you going to tell _us_ what's going on anytime soon?"

"Does the term 'fucked beyond all belief' mean anything to you? Cause that's us right now." I snapped, and then sighed. I did an ESP with Ranger –which yes, I can do now, yay!– so while he explained about The Governors to Tank, Lester and Bobby, I explained Matson to Bo. When I finished Bo let out a string of curses that cut Ranger off mid-spiel. I dragged Bo out the door where we could have a discussion without interrupting Ranger.

"Jesus Christ Steph, all this shit comes back to you!"

"Listen Bo, I may be connected to Matson, but he wouldn't have gone after your mother if you hadn't fucked up. Don't try to pin that on me." I knew my voice was cold, Aunt Mary wasn't the first one to suffer for one of Bo's fuck up's, yet he always found someone else to blame it on.

"He wouldn't have come after my family if it weren't for you." Now my eyes matched my voice, cold.

"Bullshit, Bo! He didn't even know I was related to you until after you had already gotten her kidnapped. He went after _your_ family because of _you_. You can say what you want, but I won't claim responsibility for your actions." He opened his mouth, probably to blame me again, when he was cut off by a figure that stepped out from behind a tree. I cursed myself for leaving my guns in the trailer.

"As amusing as it is to watch you argue, I'll just settle the dispute for you." Matson was standing right in front of us, and I couldn't do anything, because he had a gun, and I didn't. "The first time I took her it was your fault Bo, and this time was Stephanie's, but that's hardly important. What is important is whether or not you can find her again, because this time two lives rest on it. And Stephanie, do you remember Johnson?" I fought the urge to vomit. Johnson had been one of ours. He was captured by The Governors. When we finally got his body back it was horrible. His eyes had been pulled out; his ears, nose, fingers and toes had been cut off. The rest of his body was covered in burns and patches of removed skin. If that wasn't bad enough he was pumped so full of drugs to keep him awake that didn't die for three hours after he was returned, and none of us could end it early for him. I couldn't kill a friend, even one who was dying that painfully, I just couldn't do it. Now, looking back, I wish I could have.

"I see you remember, so know this. He will look like child's play compared to Julie."


	9. Chapter 9

_Disclaimer:_ _I don't own any of the characters you recognize, they all belong to the wonderful Janet Evanovich. No copyright infringement is intended._

_A/N:_ _Just before posting Chapter 20, I went through the first nineteen chapters to edit. No plot changes have been made. The editing was for spelling, word choice and continuity. _

_Just a warning this chapter contains violence. Don't read it and then complain, because I am warning you now.

* * *

___

The next thing I know, I'm opening my eyes to see Ranger standing over me. I blinked a few times to clear my eyes before trying to sit up. Once I managed that I looked up at Ranger.

"What the hell happened?"

"You fainted, babe." I fainted? I don't faint anymore, not in the middle of a…Oh god, Julie! At this point the fear and disgust were being pushed back by anger. Julie was a good kid with a good head on her shoulders, she reminded me so much of her dad. If Matson thought he was going to get away with that shit…

"I am going to kill that mother fucker." I said before standing and walking over to Bobby. "Did you find the leak yet? We need to move real fucking fast," Before he could answer Ranger came over.

"What's the matter babe? We're all upset, but you weren't this upset an hour ago." Shit, Bo didn't tell him why I fainted? I took a couple breaths before realizing I couldn't tell Ranger without losing it.

"Ask Bo about Johnson."

"Babe?"

"Please, Ranger. I can't." I turned back to Bobby, "the leak?"

"I figured it out while you were talking to Ranger. You're not going to believe this. According to E-mail records he's been in contact with Matson for months."

"Enough lead up already, who the hell is it?" Ranger snapped, I couldn't blame him did Bobby think this was a Drama show or something? This was real life with real people at stake.

"The kid who was at the airport when we got to Miami." I wouldn't have believed it if he didn't show me the E-mails proving it. Either he was being bullied into it and that was why he was so nervous, or he was one hell of an actor and using that to his advantage. Ranger made the decision that we would leave the computer equipment at the trailer to save time, and I had Bo ride with us so he could tell Ranger about Johnson.

After Bo explained what had happened to Johnson and what Matson had said we were already at the RangeMan building. Ranger walked in calmly, but when he saw the kid sitting by the desk he grabbed him be the neck of his shirt and literally dragged him into the elevator. We followed him in to see the kid flailing around in his grip.

"W-wh-what's going on?" he stuttered and I rolled my eyes.

"Game fucking over, kid." Ranger said, "We're going to take you upstairs and you are going to spill your fucking guts so help you god. Because if you don't, I'll make your partners look like amateurs." I had no doubt about which partners he meant and what they would like amateurs in. I wasn't going to say anything though; it wasn't my kid being tortured after all. He didn't get out at the top floor as I expected but rather the fourth, guess he didn't take dirty business to his apartment. He pulled something out of his pocket and pressed a button. I was going to assume it was a scrambler for the cameras.

"Before you tell us everything you know about Julie, answer one question. Why?" I asked him, only half expecting him to answer.

"Because he has more power than any of you, and because I thought no one would suspect p-po-poor s-stuttering m-me." I gave a slight choke showing how stupid I thought it was, it would have been a snicker, but there was absolutely no humor in it.

After that the kid refused to talk, forcing Ranger to spend time trying to convince him. Now, I thought he was doing a pretty good job at convincing, but since the guy wasn't talking, I guess I was wrong. I stopped watching in favor of going through the kids computer files to see if I could pick anything up. Bobby was helping me, Lester was down in the control room trying to explain without explaining why their shyest co-worker was just dragged from the room, and I'm pretty sure what Tank was doing was making sure Ranger didn't kill the kid with out getting the information first. Bo was sitting there as if it was an everyday occurrence, and hey, with his life, maybe it was.

About 45 minutes later I heard Bo mutter something under his breath and he stood up and walked over to Ranger. He grabbed the knife from him and held his hand out when Ranger moved on him.

"Listen man, it was a nice attempt, but its not working. Time to kick it up a notch." What, is he Emeril now? He squatted down so he was level with the hand that was tied to the chair. He dragged the knife along the knuckles and the fingertips. I had the feeling I knew what he was going to do, and I really didn't want to see the kids face when he did it. I watched anyway.

His scream was close to the worst I'd ever heard. Bo had put the tip of the knife under the fingernail and pushed, ripping the finger open and dislodging the fingernail. I'd only seen it done two other times, and I didn't appreciate it anymore this time. Sure, I appreciated the cause more, but not the act. I turned away and back to the computer screen but I could still hear the screams and the sickening squish that the nail made when it came off. Since I only counted nine screams after the initial one I assumed he was going to refrain from the feet, for which I was very grateful. People tended to scream louder for that one, and I was already getting a headache.

I heard a scream that was so unearthly it made me shiver. I didn't have to turn around to know what he had done, he had got impatient and used Phillip's technique, he had stabbed the kid in the eye. I had only heard a sound like that one other time and I had never wanted to hear it again. I didn't have to turn to know that because of the depth of the stab it wouldn't be blood pooling around his eye but a sickly colored pus. I didn't have to turn around to know that I would not be able to look at him again without seeing Trish's face distorted in anguish. Because that was the last think Phillip did to Trish before he killed her. Ranger looked over at me, hatred clear on his face, but I knew that it was aimed at the kid, not me.

"Are you okay babe?" hmm, did I make a sound that gave me away or something?

"Yeah, I'm fine Ranger, just brought back some old memories." I went back to the computer and tried to tune out everything that was going on behind me. The occasional scream or whimper from the kid made it through but I just ignored it. If I concentrated on what was happening I would think too much about Trish, and I couldn't handle that right now.

Sometime later, I'm not sure how much later, Ranger walked over. "We know what we need to. Matson is holding them in an abandoned warehouse just outside Miami. We're going to be moving out in a few minutes. Are you going to be ok to go?"

"I'm fine Ranger, Phillip's technique just made me think about Trish that's all."

"Phillip's technique? There's no Phillip here babe." Of course he wouldn't know what that meant; it was only a few of us that called it that.

"The eye thing. What are you doing with the kid?"

"Your cousin said he take care of it." I gave I dry snort, I think I expected them to let him live. Unbelievably naïve of me.

"The Belle Glades then, most likely. Is he coming with us?"

"I asked him. He said that it depended on you. He had to make sure he was important enough?" Damn him to hell, he takes one stupid comment that I made in an effort to keep him away from The Governors and holds it against me forever.

"Stupid prick. If he's dressed, which he usually is, he's coming. We're gonna need all the help we can get if any of The Governors are there. Are you bringing any of the other RangeMen from down here?"

"No. I know we found the leak but I don't think I want to risk it. Do you really think any of them will be there?" before I could answer Tank came in and said we were moving out. I held Ranger back just long enough to ask him the one question I desperately wanted the answer to.

"What was your connection to The Governors?" He looked at me long and hard, probably trying to decide if I could deal with the answer.

"I told you I wasn't the first to leave, babe. Well now you know who I left."


	10. Chapter 10

_Disclaimer:_ _I don't own any of the characters you recognize, they all belong to the wonderful Janet Evanovich. No copyright infringement is intended._

_A/N:_ _Just before posting Chapter 20, I went through the first nineteen chapters to edit. No plot changes have been made. The editing was for spelling, word choice and continuity. _

* * *

I fought the urge to let my jaw drop and instead kept my face blank. Ranger had been a Governor? No that couldn't be right, he was just a teenager, too young to be an international crime lord. Hmm…lackey maybe, doesn't seem like Ranger though, he's not really one to follow other. Maybe…

"Babe," he said with a slight smile, "there's smoke coming out of your ears."

"Well yeah, I mean 16 is a little young to be a crime lord and you don't exactly follow others well."

"You're reading to much into their organization babe. Not every Governor is a crime lord, some of them are only Governors because they have so many ties to local gangs. The organization itself is headed by the crime lords." He looked at me and I could tell he was waiting for my reaction. What did he expect, I mean look at me and my family. The proof of that came walking through the door. Bo.

"Are you coming? We've been waiting five minutes." Huh, guess I was thinking longer than I realized. I nodded my head at Bo and gave Ranger a smile to let him know that I wouldn't freak out on him. My eyes told him that when this was over we were going to have a serious conversation though. He nodded his consent and we walked out to the SUV's.

RangeMan Miami was strategically central to several of the major crime areas in Miami. The warehouse we were headed to was only a 10 minute drive that was reduced to about 6 minutes because Ranger decided he didn't like the speed limit laws. The ride was completely silent except for the sound of Bo checking the magazines in his guns. I did a quick check of all my weapons. Sig Sauer, a Browning Hi Power, a glock, and three knives, one on each arm and one on my right leg. I used to have one for the left leg, but I think it got buried six feet under.

When we got to the warehouse Tank, Lester and Bobby were already leaning over a large paper spread out on the hood of the Explorer. Blueprints for the warehouse. I have no clue when they had the time to get them. We walked over and Tank looked up.

"We've done a quick circle of the building and all the windows are boarded completely, no one will get out those. There is a roof hatch but it's not viable for an escape unless they're planning on committing suicide, it's a five story building and the lowest fire escape barely hits the bottom of the fourth floor. There are two other doors we have to be careful of. The front door right there, and a door on the second story that used to have a fire escape. It's still a pretty high drop but its right above one of the boarded windows and the board could be used to lower someone enough to drop safely."

Wow that was a pretty good assessment of the building considering they got here about three minutes before us. I just hoped that they didn't miss anything in their rush to get this done.

"I think the most likely place to find Julie and Mary will be up on the fourth floor. According to the blueprints they had four vaults up there. It would be the most secure place in the building if you didn't want anyone getting in or out."

"Okay," Ranger started, "we won't worry about guarding the doors we'll clear the building one level at a time. If they can't escape up then we can push them up and trap them rather then leading them down and having to worry about the exits. Bobby you're with Lester, Steph…are you going to be able to work with Bo or are you two going to start arguing again."

I must have made a face because I know I didn't say anything about my opinion on the matter, but the next thing I know he has Bo partnered with Tank and I'm with him. Or maybe he just planned it that way. We all had on headsets which made it so much easier because we wouldn't have to worry about giving our location away with shouts.

We went in the front door and fanned out clearing the areas on the first floor one by one, we all found a separate staircase and went up to the second floor. The other two teams cleared but we found a man sitting in an office. I knew the face on this man, this was one of Matson's men. Ranger aimed his gun but I shook my head and whispered that it would be to loud. He looked up from his chair and right at us, pulling his gun while standing up. I took a knife and hit him center in the throat. He fell back into his chair and I knew he wouldn't be getting back up. I still went and grabbed the knife, no sense letting the wrong person get a hold of it. I heard Ranger whispering that we had taken one out on the second floor and were headed for the third.

We were on our way up the stairs when we heard Bobby swear a blue streak. I wasn't sure if I was hearing it from him or from the headset so I ran the rest of the way up the stairs. I stopped short just short of being off the stairs and pulled Ranger back keeping him from rushing in. The third floor was one big empty room. Well empty except the six men surrounding Bobby and Lester with guns trained on them. I saw Bo and Tank pull back on the staircase opposite of us, and hoped I was the only one who had seen them.

Bobby looked absolutely pissed. He didn't look like a man who was worried he was about to be shot he looked like his favorite team had just lost the World Series by one run. If the situation were less serious I would find it amusing that that was what his reaction to being surrounded by hostiles was. Lester on the other hand was shut down; his face was so blank I had to do a double take just to be sure he wasn't dead.

Tank whispered a plan into the headset and we moved into the room quietly. We were hoping to get behind a few of them so we could put our guns to their heads before they noticed us. We could have just shot them from the staircase but there was two great a chance they would just kill Lester and Bobby at first fire.

Our plan however failed because three of them turned to us and a couple more turned to Tank and Bo. The fired off a few shots and I'm pretty sure they were supposed to scare us not kill us because they were pretty far off. Close enough that I was forced to duck back into the stairwell but to far to be accidental for a good shooter.

I came out of the stairwell just in time to see Bobby sink to the ground with blood seeping from his side. He looked up at me before falling onto his side on the floor.


	11. Chapter 11

_Disclaimer:_ _I don't own any of the characters you recognize, they all belong to the wonderful Janet Evanovich. No copyright infringement is intended._

_A/N:_ _Just before posting Chapter 20, I went through the first nineteen chapters to edit. No plot changes have been made. The editing was for spelling, word choice and continuity. _

* * *

I wanted to run over to Bobby's side, but getting myself shot too would not help the situation. I stepped out and fired at the closest person, bullet hitting the middle of the back of his head. Ranger, Tank, Bo and Lester scattered, looking for a good shot. Another man dropped across the room, but I couldn't tell which one of us hit him. I saw the little red dot on another mans back and realized Ranger was using the gun I'd given him. The man moved before Ranger could shoot. Bo and Lester were both fighting hand to hand with two other guys and Ranger, Tank and two more men were in a stand off. Everyone was pretty much ignoring me.

The logical part of me was telling myself to go break the stand off. Burg-girl Stephanie was pissed that no one was taking me seriously enough to be concerned about me, well Tank and Ranger were probably just ignoring me so the other guys wouldn't notice me and I could break the standoff. Probably. I was also still fighting the urge to run to Bobby. I paused to take a good look at the men and realized that none of them were governors, at least not ones I recognized. That explains why they were ignoring me, they didn't know me. Shouts of 'No, _you_ drop the fucking gun!' brought me to the here and now. It also made me roll my eyes, and I would have rolled them even if I wasn't from the burg.

Ranger had his gun trained on one man, and the other man had his gun trained on an empty handed Tank. I aimed my gun at the man near Tank and debated shooting him, it was either that or tell him to drop the gun. Since the other man had no weapon and couldn't shoot Ranger at my fire, shooting was the best option. The only problem was, if he moved at all I would hit Tank's right shoulder, it wouldn't be fatal but it would put us down another man. I looked over to Bo and Lester, Bo had slit his mans throat and now Lester and Bo were keeping the other man in the corner at gunpoint. Someone to question. I quickly fired off two rounds, hitting the man in the chest and shoulder.

"Don't shoot him!" I called to Ranger before the man even hit the ground, "If we question two we can check their stories against each other."

Once I was sure we were no longer in immediate danger I ran to Bobby, and was followed closely by Ranger. He was conscious which was a good thing, it meant he wasn't dead. He had propped himself up against the wall and pulled off his shirt and was pressing it against his side. I can't figure out why he wasn't wearing a Kevlar vest.

"I'm ok," he managed to say, but he sounded like he was in a lot of pain, "It would have been just a flesh wound but they were using fucking shrapnel bullets." Ranger looked from Bobby to the stairs. "I'll be fine man, I still got my gun, just go." Ranger took off for the stairs and I followed, a little more slowly though, I didn't really want to leave Bobby alone. Well ok, Bo and Lester would be down here, but they were questioning the two men, not guarding Bobby. "I'll be fine Beautiful, just go."

"Damn ESP," I said with a smile before turning and heading for the stairs. When I reached the fourth floor Ranger was pounding on the door to a safe, trying to get it to open. I heard a voice on the other side, but it was muffled and I couldn't tell what it was saying. I pulled a couple small explosives out of my bag and motioned to Ranger. He yelled for anyone who was in there to stand away from the door. We attached them around the lock and set them off. The door was so thick that it didn't make a hole, but it did destroy the lock, so we were clear.

Ranger pulled the door open and Julie was inside. She looked a lot worse for the wear, with a lot of visible bruises and wounds, but she didn't seem too dispirited. She started walking out but was stopped as Ranger rushed in and hugged her.

"Jules, baby, are you ok? Jesus I was so worried about you. I'm so sorry, this is all my fault."

"I'm fine dad, really. Hiya Steph," she looked up at me and smiled but I saw a look in her eye. I recognized the look because I had it so many times before. It was a haunted look. I would have to talk to her or Ranger about it, but now was so not the time.

"Hey Julie," I directed at her then looked at Ranger, "Ranger, we should really get out of here before…" that was about as far as I got before things turned to shit.

"Before what Stephanie? Before I come and kill you all?" Matson. Well him and about ten other men who were standing outside the vault holding guns on us. These men I recognized, these were governors. "Well don't worry, I'm not going to kill you. Yet." The vault door closed. Ranger and I ran over to it. I have no clue how they managed to lock us in here when the lock should have been blown to smithereens, but they did because the door wasn't moving. I realized that the must be over-confident shits, because they locked us in here with our weapons. I fired a few rounds into the lock, but the door still wouldn't budge.

"Well, I see you had this planned out real well dad." Julie said sarcastically, Ranger looked at her for a minute before they both started laughing. Manoso humor, I didn't get it. Too bad, I could use the laugh. About ten minutes later the door opened and the men outside were holding guns on us. They pushed Tank, Lester, Bo and finally a pale, doubled over Bobby. I just realized that we hadn't found Aunt Mary, I turned to Julie.

"Did they have another woman here?"

"They did, but they killed her earlier this morning."


	12. Chapter 12

_Disclaimer:_ _I don't own any of the characters you recognize, they all belong to the wonderful Janet Evanovich. No copyright infringement is intended._

_A/N:_ _Just before posting Chapter 20, I went through the first nineteen chapters to edit. No plot changes have been made. The editing was for spelling, word choice and continuity. _

* * *

They killed her. The words echoed in my mind as I sunk to the floor. Aunt Mary was dead, and it was my fault. I took deep breaths trying to calm my heart. They killed her. They killed Aunt Mary. She's dead, and it's my fault. It just kept echoing in my mind. I looked up just in time to see Bo's fist fly into my face.

"It's your fucking fault bitch. My mothers dead because you wanted to play little miss double agent." I saw Ranger move towards him and I shook my head.

"I didn't want to play little double anything you stupid shit, the CIA blackmailed us. Yeah, you didn't know that did you," I added when I saw his eyes widen a little. The only ones who knew why we did what we did was the team that came to Miami. "And for the record, it may be my fault they took her, but it's your fault they killed her. You just had to see how many buttons you could push. You just had to fuck Renito's daughter and walk out the next morning. If you hadn't fucked up before they wouldn't have even known we were related."

I heard Ranger suck in a breath when I mentioned Renito. Renito was the head of the Fangs, and he was not known to be a nice man. The Fangs competency at organized crime was equivalent to my competency as a BEA before I was trained, however, if you wanted someone competent in torture Renito was second only to The Governors. Bo's fist flew out again at my tirade but this time I caught it.

"Hit me again, Bo, and you won't have to worry about what The Governors will do to your body." My voice was back to being cold and emotionless again, I knew that. I also knew that Tank, Bobby and Lester would be looking at me because so far they hadn't heard me like this. Evidentially Bo didn't believe me because he went to swing again but Ranger grabbed him by the back of the shirt and pulled him away. I guess Ranger did believe me.

"Children," he said, oh I _know_ he wasn't talking about me, "Now is not the time for the blame game," _blame game_ what the hell happened to my Ranger, he would never say something like _blame game_. "We're trapped in a safe with god knows how many governors out there waiting to do god knows what with us. Can we focus."

"We need a plan." I looked at Bo and fought the urge to roll my eyes. No shit Captain Obvious.

"We could try to over power them the next time they come to the safe." Tank thought out loud. "It would obviously be dangerous but I don't think we could come up with a plan anymore dangerous then sitting here, waiting to be picked off one by one." Ranger looked ready to disagree.

"Tank's right Ranger. There's nothing else we can do. I don't know how it's possible but they managed to lock us in here…"

"Secondary lock, babe." I looked up at him, no clue what he was talking about.

"Huh?"

"Secondary lock. Some of the older vaults have a second lock that can be used in an emergency, and are often concealed. The only way for us to find it would be to shoot the shit out of the door. It would use up all of our bullets, which assuming we found it, and destroyed it, would leave us virtually defenseless."

"Ok, so that just confirms what I was saying, Tank is right. Right now we have to options. We can sit here and be good little captives until we've been tortured to death or we can do our best to fight our way out of this. Granted we may still end up dead, but at least we'll go out fighting." Or we would just be wounded and then we would spend the next week wishing we had been killed, but why point that out now. It'll make for good conversations if we make it out of here.

Ranger closed his eyes, probably trying to think of some alternate plan that didn't have us squaring off against double or triple our number in Governors. Then I saw Julie and realized what his hang-up was. Julie, she had no vest, no weapons, and hell, I wouldn't want my daughter in the middle of a shoot-out either. I also wouldn't want her to be tortured to death. Ranger's vest had somehow disappeared, because I _know_ he had one when we came in here.

"One of the guys downstairs managed to get it off when we were fighting. I was more worried about the guy in front of me with a knife to my throat then the guy behind me yanking at my vest." I sighed, there would be nothing to make this day easy. Tank had already giving his to Bobby because he was wounded, Bo didn't have one to start with, and looking at Bobby I really didn't want to ask Lester to give his up.

"She can take mine, and I'm sure we've got enough guns on us to give her one or two." He looked at me for a minute. I wondered if he was trying to figure out why I would give my vest up to his daughter, after not talking to him for years. Well if that's the case then he was just stupid. "Always." I told him. He almost smiled and I nodded. I unclipped the vest and handed it to Julie who seemed reluctant to take it.

"I don't want you to…" She started before being cut off by one of Ranger's glares. "But dad…"

"Julie." The tone of his voice was obviously enough because she grabbed the vest. It was a little big on her, but it was better than nothing. I felt someone looking at me and turned to see Tank looking at me. Kind of like it was his first time seeing me since I was back. He nodded at me, and I smiled. Tank was impressed with me. Goody. Maybe I could impress the Governors into liking me. Don't roll your eyes at me, I was being sarcastic.

"We should take inventory of all our weapons, pool them together and distribute them evenly. We'll have a better chance of no one running out of ammo that way. I think we've got enough knives that everyone should be good for hand to hand to." We all started pulling out our weapons counting off how many we had of what. We ended up with 18 guns, 14 knives, 3 stun guns, and a pepper spray. After going through and checking the ammo we had 16 guns that were useable. Both Bobby and I had emptied one of ours.

We gave Julie a gun, a knife, a stun gun and the pepper spray. Ranger was reluctant to give Julie a gun until I reminded him of A) Scrog and B) the countless hours he had dragged her to the shooting range for. He balked at the knife because it meant his little girl would be fighting hand to hand. This got him a large groan of 'Daaad, isn't that why you forced me to go to karate for the last five years.' If we hadn't been in such a serious situation I would have pointed out that Karate literally meant 'empty hand' not 'with knife'.

After Julie's weapons had been settled we divided the rest up. I took two guns, two knifes, and a stun gun. Lester took two guns and three knives, Bobby took two guns, one kinfe and the last stun gun. I was worried that Bo would pounce on the guns and take them all for himself, but he only took three guns and two knifes. That left eight guns and six knifes with only two people left, so I grabbed another gun and tossed another knife to Julie. I got a slight glare from Ranger. Ranger managed to scoop up four guns and two knives, leaving Tank with three guns and three knives.

We all stood there silent. No matter how things went down, we were going to be talking about a mass murder. Either the seven of us if we didn't make it out, or an unknown, but undoubtedly large, number of others if we did. The worst thought was that even if we did make it out we might suffer casualties. Julie broke the silence.

"If any of you die because you were trying to save me, I'm going to haunt your crazy asses."

"Language Julie." I think everyone, even Tank, did an eye roll at that. I guess he was joking though because though he kept a straight face for about five seconds he and Julie both started laughing.

Damn, I really want in on this Manoso humor. After that short exchange we were silent for god knows how long. Jeez, four years ago if I stayed this quiet for his long people would have thought I was dead. I noticed Tank looking at me again and I raised my eyebrow. He just shook his head. I took it to mean either you don't want to know, I'll tell you if we survive, or not in front of Julie. Finally Ranger spoke again.

"I want to have two lines. Steph, Bobby and Julie in the back with…"

"_Excuse me,_" I said, most people would be glad they weren't in the front line, but when was I ever most people? "Why am _I_ in the back?" The corner of his mouth twitched up.

"You don't have a vest babe."

"Neither do you, or Tank, or Bo." I raised a challenging eyebrow. "Bo, you stay in the second line with Julie and Bobby."

"If you think I'm going to take orders from _you,_ after…"

"Damn it, Bo!" Ranger snapped and everybody turned to look at him, "I'm sorry about your mom, I really am, but unless you want to end up with her, you need to focus until we're out of here."

"Who the hell are you to talk to me that way you just…"

"All of you!" Tank this time "You need to just…" He was cut off as the vault door opened.

"Maybe if I leave all of you in here together, you'll kill yourselves off and I won't have to lift a finger." It was Matson, and he was alone. No Fangs, no Governors, no anyone to back him up. Sure he had a gun, but he was alone. I felt Ranger shift beside me, felt as his hands moved up, and felt the rush of air as Ranger fired just over my shoulder and straight into Matson's chest.


	13. Chapter 13

_Disclaimer:_ _I don't own any of the characters you recognize, they all belong to the wonderful Janet Evanovich. No copyright infringement is intended._

_A/N:_ _Just before posting Chapter 20, I went through the first nineteen chapters to edit. No plot changes have been made. The editing was for spelling, word choice and continuity. _

* * *

His eyes widened in surprise for a fraction of a second before he fell backwards. He wasn't moving, but I didn't see blood either. Ranger moved forward, gun still aimed at him just in case. He leaned over Matson and pushed at the bullet before looking up.

"He's wearing a vest, he must have hit his head when he fell and knocked himself out." I snorted a little, earning myself a dirty look, but I couldn't help it, it was funny. He waved us forward, "If he came alone, the others can't be too far behind. Let's get out before they show up." We walked out of the vault, keeping Julie and Bobby surrounded. My eyes widened when I realized Ranger was just going to leave Matson there. He wouldn't be unconscious forever.

"Ranger," I hissed quietly, so Julie couldn't hear me, "He's going to wake up soon, you can't just leave him like that."

"Babe, I can't kill a defenseless man in front of my daughter." Defenseless? Chances were his daughter was going to kill to get out of there.

"He's got a gun."

"Babe." By now the others had reached the door and were looking back at us. Ranger held up one finger, in a motion to say, give me one second. He pulled off his sweater and ripped it in half, using the pieces to tie Matson's hands and feet.

"Yeah," I shot at him harshly "That'll work. Until they find him and untie him. Jesus Ranger." I understood where he was coming from, I did. I wouldn't be able to shoot an unconscious man in the head with my daughter right there either, but I just knew that leaving him there was going to get one of us killed. I sighed as I let Ranger pull me toward the door, but froze as I heard a cough from behind me. "He's awake."

Ranger and I both turned, but instead of finding Matson waking up, we found 10 very angry looking Governors. Well I was assuming they were all Governors, either way they were all carrying and they were all wearing identical sadistic grins. A quick glance behind me told me that Tank and the others were still there, but hidden by the stairway door. I'd be grinning to if I thought the odds were ten to two. Ranger made some funky gesture with his fingers that I barely noticed. I'm assuming it was a signal for Tank, otherwise he would have come out by now. When I glanced behind me again only Tank and Julie were still there, where the hell did everyone else go?

Tank and Julie stepped out of the stairwell, but I noticed Tank made sure he was in front of Julie. This got a chuckle out of some of the Governors.

"Two more people don't even out your odds much, especially when one of them probably doesn't even know where the safety is." One said, I recognized him as Salvatore Bonadello, who was known to be one of the craziest Governors. I'd heard rumors that to prove he was loyal only to The Governors he'd slaughtered his whole family. Now to me, that would just prove he was an unstable psycho who should never see the light of day again, but nooo, to these guys it was apparently a sign of loyalty. Twisted, all of them.

"I may not know where the safety is but I know it's not on. And dad showed me where the trigger was, so I'm sure I can manage to pull it." I heard Tank stifle a laugh at the same time I heard Ranger's admonishing tone saying 'Julie'.

"Your brat is insolent Manoso. I'll take great pleasure in breaking her before she dies." I didn't know this one by name, but I did recognize him from my last encounter.

"Yeah, because you managed that sooo well last time you tried." Julie again, was she purposely pissing these guys off? Definite Ranger trait. Ranger backed up a step so he was side by side with Tank.

"What the hell is she doing?" Tank didn't answer but Ranger stepped forward anyway, I really wish I was better at this ESP shit.

"Ask Matson," Ranger said gesturing at the man they had untied, "He knows _I_ don't break easy, do you really think either of these two will break easier than me?" I had a moment where the only thing that mattered was finding out if Ranger actually believed I wouldn't break, or he was just saying that to irk them. Then my mind cleared and I realized it wasn't the time or place for that question.

"You will break Mano…"

"And you know, if you're planning on torturing us to death guns, not the best choice of weapons. One or two stray bullets and you're down a whole lot of fun." Ok Ranger, what's going on? I wasn't sure why we were stalling, but I was smart enough to recognize stalling when I see it. I was the master of it.

"Enough of this." Bonadello said in the same tone Ranger used when there was no arguing with him. "Get them all to separate rooms. If you kill them, you_ will_ take their place." Hmmm, now I know who the leader is. They started moving forward as one, only Bonadello staying back. They took about three steps before I held out a hand.

"Wait, wait, wait. I get why you want me, I know why you want Ranger and therefore regrettably I understand why Julie's here, but what does Tank have to do with any of this?" Wow Steph, great stall, asking a question with an obvious answer. Mental eye-roll…can you roll your eyes at yourself…focus.

"Stephanie, Stephanie, Stephanie…why do you postpone the inevitable? You know…" but I wasn't listening to him anymore, I was looking behind the governors. Now I knew why we had been stalling.


	14. Chapter 14

_Disclaimer:_ _I don't own any of the characters you recognize, they all belong to the wonderful Janet Evanovich. No copyright infringement is intended._

_A/N:_ _Just before posting Chapter 20, I went through the first nineteen chapters to edit. No plot changes have been made. The editing was for spelling, word choice and continuity. _

* * *

Behind the Governors, stood Lester and Bo with about three new men that I didn't recognize. A quick glance at the other two stairwells showed more RangeMen, all mostly hidden from the Governors view, either by their position of the angle of the door. Hmm, they must have gotten down to the truck and pushed the Panic button that every RangeMan SUV is equipped with. It made me wonder why none of us had a panic button before I remember we were doing this under the radar because of Quang Nam. Oh well. Damn, these guys must've hauled ass to get to the truck, alert RangeMan, wait for the RangeMen and get back up here in a span of about eight minutes.

I realized that Bobby wasn't in the mix anywhere and was hoping he had just stayed in the car or was already on his why to the hospital. I really didn't want to think of him being dead on the floor somewhere or being left to make his way out to the car alone. I heard an angry noise and realized that Bonadello was still talking.

"Stephanie Michelle Plum, you ought to respect your superiors and listen when they speak." I laughed. I was laughing so hard I didn't have time to wonder how he knew my middle name.

"Y-you sound…just…like my…m-m-mot-mother." I laughed, doing my best to breathe. Obviously he didn't like my answer because before I could blink he had fired his gun, grazing my arm. At the sound of first fire all hell broke loose.

Noise erupted from all directions as the RangeMen barreled out and the Governors realized what was going on. As I looked around I realized Bo and Lester had also acquired some new weapons because I definitely would have remembered a Mini-Uzi and an H&K MP5K being in the mix. Bo managed to take out three Governors with the Mini before we became to mixed together for it to be useful.

I swore as a bullet missed my neck by inches and realized I needed to pay more attention. I fired a return bullet in the direction of my attacker before I consciously thought about it. I realized we were going to have a hard time with this because regardless of how cocky they were, they had worn vests. We were either going to have to hit their head or manage to get lucky and pierce the artery in their leg. Normally this wasn't a problem but there were just too many people in too small a space. Looking quickly I realized that despite the chaos someone had untied Matson.

As I shot at the Governors I could see, avoided the bullets shot at me, and watched to make sure Julie and Ranger remained alive, I realized they had given up on keeping us alive. Every shot they took was a shot aimed to kill. Someone was not going to be happy with that decision. And I mean someone other than us, someone like the Governor who had order the issues we stay alive for now.

I managed to shoot one guy on the side of the head. It was just a graze, it wouldn't kill him. Sure he'd be unconscious for a while and forget who he was for a few days, but he'd live. I might have shot him again until I was sure he was dead if it weren't for the dire circumstances. I couldn't understand why with about 20 of us against 11 people it was taking so long but then I saw that there were more RangeMen on the floor than Governors. That wasn't good.

As I looked up from the carnage I turned to see a man aim at the back of Julies head. She would never hear a warning over the noise so I did the only thing I could think of. I jumped in front, or actually behind, Julie. I felt a searing pain in my chest, and felt myself knock Julie to the floor before everything went black

**Rangers PoV**

I saw the bullet heading toward Julie and panicked because I knew I would never reach her in time. My eyes widened as I saw Steph lunge in front of it. I was relieved Julie wasn't dead, but I didn't feel better. Steph was lying on the floor unconscious or dead because of me. Even after not seeing me for years she just as willingly risked her life for me, and it cost her. The worst part is realizing that I never let go of her.

I felt myself slip into a frame of mind I hadn't felt since the darkest of my military days. A place where killing wasn't for survival, but because I wanted the fuckers in front of me dead. plain and simple. No emotion, and sure as hell no regret, just the need to kill. I slipped my gun into the back of my pants as I slid left to avoid a bullet. I looked up to see that it had been Bonadello who fired, perfect. I tuned out everything, yet was hyper-aware of every bullet fired, knew where every person was, yet saw none of them. I was tuned to kill.

I moved to Bonadello quickly, drawing my knife while dodging another bullet. Before he could fire again I kicked the gun out of his hand giving him a grin much worse than the one he wore earlier. He backed up a step and pulled out his own knife. It was longer than mine and I could tell by looking at it that it was unbalanced and meant for fear and torture, not combat.

He lunged at me, using a messy swipe of the knife that was easy to block. By the time he made two or three attempts it was clear he had never trained with a knife. A far corner of my mind wondered how he had managed to slaughter his family, but I didn't need to know that to kill him, so I blocked it out. With a quick movement I slashed out slicing his wrist and causing him to drop his knife. With movements so quick they were hard to follow I had stabbed him in the gut causing him to double over slightly and I positioned myself behind him. With the skill and precision taught to us, I slit his throat, slicing through both of the carotid arteries and ensuring death.

I was feeling absolutely nothing but the adrenaline of the kill. I killed one of the men responsible for my daughters capture. Now all I had to do was make sure Matson's blood joined Bonadello's on my hand. I didn't even feel the bullet slicing through my flesh or the sound of Julie calling my name as I hit the floor.


	15. Chapter 15

_Disclaimer:_ _I don't own any of the characters you recognize, they all belong to the wonderful Janet Evanovich. No copyright infringement is intended._

_A/N:_ _Just before posting Chapter 20, I went through the first nineteen chapters to edit. No plot changes have been made. The editing was for spelling, word choice and continuity. _

* * *

_Beep...beep…beep…beep…beep…beep…_

My head hurt, I could barely open my eyes, and "THAT FUCKING BEEPING IS NOT HELPING!" I yelled. Ok, so I tried to yell, really it just came out as a few different raspy sounds. I opened my eyes far enough to see a heart monitor but my mind was flashing with different pictures I was straining to remember.

"_Ranger you have every right to be pissed at me for leaving without talking to you first but I really need a favor." We were standing in Shorty's; my hair was already short and my tattoo was already on my arm, so it had to be recent._

"_We killed everyone who knew, before they could turn us over." We were in some room I don't remember, and I was holding a bottle of beer._

"_Matson being here is just a distraction. He's got someone down there after Julie, I guarantee it. Even with Matson up here, She'd still be more secure than in Miami." We were still in the same room. Wait, Matson was after Julie?_

"_Yeah Tank, It's me. Listen, hold the jet and get a team ready to head down to Miami, only people who know about Quang Nam." So is that why Matson is after Julie? Because of Quang Nam? Shit, why can't I remember this._

'_Did you like my choice of Venue's Stephanie? You're too late to find us. You shouldn't have let me known you were coming.' Wait, this cabin, isn't this where I used to vacation? _

"_I recognized the place babe, saw a sign through the window. Little trailer park in Hallandale, Sunny Acres." Sunny Acres? Doesn't Aunt Mary live there? He recognizes it from what?_

"_You better start explaining who the fuck you are before I blow your fucking head off." We were still in Aunt Mary's trailer, and Ranger was talking to Bo. Bo? What was he doing there? _

"_Aunt Mary has been kidnapped, Bo. From what we can figure she was taken around seven tonight but was most likely held captive here for sometime before that." Kidnapped? Is she ok? Wait, where does Aunt Mary come in, I thought we were looking for Julie?_

"_What was your connection to The Governors?" "I told you I wasn't the first to leave, babe. Well now you know who I left." Ranger was a Governor? No, he couldn't have been, he was too young. He worked for The Governors? What?_

'_I came out of the stairwell just in time to see Bobby sink to the ground with blood seeping from his side.' No! Is he ok? What were we doing in that…that warehouse?_

"_Well, I see you had this planned out real well dad." Julie, we found Julie. And we were in a…metal box, a really big safe? Wait I remember this, we had just found Julie when some Governors pushed Bobby and the others into the vault with us. Matson took Julie because of Quang Nam…wait, didn't Ranger say he killed Matson's son in Quang Nam. I remember now, but how did I end up in the hospital? And WHERE is the nurse? I don't have one of those clicky buttons to page her._

"_It's your fucking fault bitch. My mothers dead because you wanted to play little miss double agent." NO! Aunt Mary was dead? No, she couldn't, it couldn't, maybe he was wrong. Wait, double agent? I never wanted to! He doesn't..?_

"_And for the record, it may be my fault they took her, but it's your fault they killed her. You just had to see how many buttons you could push. You just had to fuck Renito's daughter and walk out the next morning. If you hadn't fucked up before they wouldn't have even known we were related." Well, at least I set him strait, but, but, I just admitted that they killed her, no, is she really dead?_

"_I may not know where the safety is, but I know it's off. And dad showed me where the trigger was, So I'm sure I can manage to pull it." Julie, being her fathers daughter. Is she ok? Why isn't anyone here? You'd think someone would be here, wouldn't you?_

"_Y-you sound…just…l-like m-my…m-m-mot-mother." Me laughing at Bonadello, the gun being raised, all hell breaking loose, jumping in front of Julie. Where is everyone? _

I lifted my arm and noticed that I had an IV line running into my left arm. At least it wasn't in the bend of the elbow, I hate those. I rubbed my eyes and opened them wide enough to see the room and I realized that someone was there. Ranger. He was sitting in a chair next to my bed, his eyes closed with his breathing deep, clearly asleep. He had a bandage wrapped around his head, and a small slice along his collarbone, but appeared relatively unharmed otherwise. Everything seemed fuzzy and my chest hurt, but the longer I was awake the easier thinking became. I could use some pain medicine, and was really, really thirsty, but I hated to wake Ranger. After a few seconds of weighing my options I decided the dry mouth had to go.

"Rngr," I mumbled, doing my best to try and lick my lips even though my tongue was dry as it was, "Ranger." His eyes opened and he stared at me for a few seconds before grabbing my hand and bringing it to his lips.

"Babe, you're finally awake." He said while grabbing a cup of water and placing the straw to my lips. "They removed the bullet easily, you were lucky; it missed the heart and lungs. They said you would have woken up later that day if you hadn't given yourself a concussion by hitting your head when you fell." My eyes widened and I fought the blush rising up in my cheeks. My life was hell, this was all because I had made fun of Matson when he knocked himself out. I took another sip of water, and hit the button on the side of the bed that lifted the head. I needed to sit up. I did it slowly, pausing several times, the shift hurting my chest but not as much as I thought it should.

"How long have I been out?" I said, my voice still harsh, but not as raspy as before.

"Three days." Three days? Must have been some concus…sion…if it was only a concussion…why am I on a heart monitor? "Just until you were awake again," Ranger said, reading my thoughts. Hmpf. I could lose my blank-face after being shot. It's allowed. My face lost it's smile, it was time for the hardest part about waking up after something like this.

"Who..." my breath hitched, and I took a second before starting again. "Who did we lose?" I took his pause as a chance to study him better. He was tired, clearly he hadn't been sleeping. There was sadness in his eyes but not worry and that coupled with the fact that Ranger was in my room led me to believe that Julie was ok. I also noticed a cut bisecting his left eyebrow…it was kind of sexy. His features tightened a little and he blew out a breath trying to relax them.

"Three of the RangeMen from Miami, Bobby, your Aunt Mary, and I'm sorry babe, but Bo didn't make it either." I closed my eyes, Aunt Mary and Bo. I waited for the heartbreak to come but it didn't happen. I really was never incredibly close to either of them, it was sad, but nothing more. Truth be told, I was more upset over the fact that we lost Bobby.

"Bobby?"

"Along with the blood loss from the gun shot wound there was severe damage to the liver and one kidney. Somewhere along the way the wound was infected with one of the few types of bacteria that cause necrotizing fasciitis. The doctor said that the Cause of death was blood loss but there was a good chance the infection would have killed him anyway. The funeral is Friday." If I was out for three days, then that would make today Wednesday, right? Two days until the funeral. I don't know if the doctors are going to like that, me leaving that soon. I will leave too, even if it is AMA.

"Bo?" I asked, wondering who had finally managed the feat so many had tried for.

"I was unconscious by the time he…it happened, but apparently he took a bullet straight to the heart saving Tank." Despite it all I couldn't help but smile.

"Its how he always wanted to go… 'Playing the hero for once'. His words, not mine." I told him. The next question was the one I was dreading most of all. It was almost as if I couldn't make my lips form the words. Ranger took pity on me.

"Her body was recovered by our teams right away, but it was already too late. The authorities have the body." I started to nod, but it made my head hurt.

"And Julie, she's ok? Right?"

"Yeah, she's at my place right now, she kept kicking me out, telling me to come be with you." He glanced away and then back at me before speaking again. "I saw him aim at Julie, and I knew I wouldn't get there in time. My heart just froze, I couldn't breathe. I saw you jump in front of Julie, and I was glad she was ok, but I still couldn't breathe. I've never been good with relationships, but I need you around. When I saw you hit the ground, I realized how much having you back meant to me, and I can't lose you again. I love you Steph." Ranger was in love with me. Like without classification love?

"You know I've always loved you. Always, remember." He leaned forward to kiss me, and despite the desire to let him, I blushed and threw my hands in front of my face.

"You can't kiss me." I stated, making it sound like it should be logical. He raised an eyebrow and I caved, "I have really bad breath." He looked at me for a moment, trying to figure out if I was joking, before throwing back his head and laughing.

"Can you go find my nurse, and see if I can get something for the pain in my chest? I don't know what they've been giving me, if anything, but I don't want anything stronger than Percocet. And can you run down to the gift store and get me a sketch pad and pencils, oh and some mouth wash a toothbrush and some toothpaste. Real stuff, not the stuff they give you up here." I smiled at him, and batted my eye-lashes for good measure. He stood and walked out of the room, and I sunk back into the pillow that I knew Ranger had brought me, because it was not hospital quality. The nurse came in and handed we a pill and a cup of water.

"That's just Percocet. If it doesn't take care of the pain we have orders to give you a Dilaudid push through your IV." I shook my head, ignoring the throbbing it caused.

"I don't take narcotics."

"There's Oxycodone in that Percocet, and Oxycodone is a narcotic pain reliever."

"Yes but it's mixed with Acetaminophen, and I'll only be taking it today." Whatever, just give me the freakin pill, and stop trying to prove how much you know.

"The doctors recommend that you continue to take them for another four days." I rolled my eyes, yes, and they'll be so heartbroken when I turn down drugs, right?

"Well, I'm recommending you tell them I'll only be taking it today." I could be bitchy after being shot. It's allowed. "Just how long do they think they're keeping me here anyway?"

"The concussion is gone and the gunshot wound is already starting to heal up nicely. You should be able to leave after you eat something and manage to keep it down. It's about 10:30 right now, why don't you go ahead and order some lunch, and if it stays down we'll get the doctors over here to work on you discharge this afternoon."

After a little persuasive wording I finally convinced the nurse to take the IV out of my arm. By the time she had done that, taken my vitals and I had ordered my lunch, Ranger was back. He put the pad and pencils on the bedside table and handed me the mouthwash.

"No toothpaste." He told me as I frowned.

"No toothpaste," I said disbelievingly "What the hell kind of hospital doesn't have toothpaste?"

He smiled and I immediately went to stand and wash out my mouth before he could 'babe' me. I was shaky on my feet, but managed to make it to the bathroom myself, and swat him away when he tried to help. After I had peed and rinsed the icky taste out of my mouth, I spent a few minutes pacing the small room and bending my legs, trying to get them to move right. I hadn't been off them long enough to cause muscle loss, but they were pretty stiff. Running my tongue along my teeth to make sure I didn't get a bad-breath taste off of them, I returned to my room.

I walked over to where Ranger was standing, pulled him up to me, and kissed him. A light feathery kiss at first, until he pulled me towards him, his tongue sliding through my lips, caressing against my own. When breathing because a necessity, I pulled away and gave him a grin and a raised eyebrow.

"I'm going to be discharged this afternoon. And I still need a place to stay."

"Don't forget about Julie babe," he whispered against my lips as he rested his forehead against mine. My chest was sore but the Percocets had taken care of most of the pain, and I'd definitely dealt with worse.

"It's a big house. I'm sure she enjoys listening to loud music." I pulled away and crawled back into the bed grabbing the pad and pencils. I began to sketch out some different designs. My first thought was a star, but it was plain, and I really didn't want one tattooed on me. I messed around with a few Celtic designs, but couldn't find one I thought was suitable.

"Babe," Ranger asked just as I was putting the pencil back to the paper, "What are you doing?"

"Designing my new tattoo." I answered, wondering if he'd remember the cause of my first tattoo. He nodded.

"For Bo?" I looked at him for a second, my brows wrinkling a little.

"No, for Bobby."


	16. Chapter 16

_Disclaimer:_ _I don't own any of the characters you recognize, they all belong to the wonderful Janet Evanovich. No copyright infringement is intended._

_A/N:_ _Just before posting Chapter 20, I went through the first nineteen chapters to edit. No plot changes have been made. The editing was for spelling, word choice and continuity._"For Bobby?" Ranger questioned. I guess if you weren't part of my family you might not get where I was coming from.

* * *

"Bobby was my partner more than once, and I respected him, so yes, for Bobby." I kept my pencil on the paper, sketching out the design as I talked to him.

"But not for Bo?"

"Bo was my cousin, that's it. Our family is kinda, broken down into groups, some groups are friends with other, some groups are enemies and some are indifferent. I know all families have those few they ignore or whatever, but our family takes it a lot further than most. My mother banned all contact from Bo when he was around 13, the day he killed his first person. After that I just never really saw him again until the Matson mess, it's not that I'm not sorry he's dead, it's just that I don't… care, that much. It's not any different than hearing that the reclusive neighbor died. It's sad, but that's it." He looked like he wasn't going to press the issue, and I was grateful, I didn't want to have to try and explain anything.

"Can I see it?" I handed him the pad with the sketch on it. I had crossed two sais over a black diamond background. In the top section of the background, above where the sais crossed, I had left an area, in the shape of the letters BB uncolored. It was one that fit Bobby, as well as one that I didn't mind wearing.

"I don't want to…encroach, but would you mind if I used this too? I like it, and it's a nice idea." I smiled, ah, the softening of batman.

"Of course not, but if you're going to use it too, then we should probably ask Tank and Lester too." Ranger grinned and stared past me causing me to wrinkle my eyebrows. I turned around and rolled my eyes.

"Ask us what Bomber?" Tank, Lester and Julie stood in the doorway. Julie, wait, Ranger said she was staying at his place? In Miami? Shouldn't she be staying at Rachel's?

"Ranger stole my tattoo idea," I whined, sticking my tongue at him for good measure before continuing in a more serious voice. "I figured I'd ask you two too, since you've both partnered with Bobby too." I made a 'well?' face at Ranger, and he handed the pad to Tank.

"Whoa, did you draw that?" Julie asked.

"Yeah."

"Dad, can I get a tattoo too?" Ranger grinned.

"Ask your mother." Julie stuck out her tongue, clearly not liking that answer, probably having already asked her mother.

"Oh come on! I've been kidnapped at shot at, I've killed people, hello, and you think I'm too young to get a tattoo?" Ranger continued to smile.

"I didn't say that. I said ask your mother." I think Julie was about to retort, but thankfully Lester cut her off.

"I like this. Where are you going to put it?" I wasn't to sure, I had been deciding between the back of my neck, the right shoulder blade, or my ankle.

"I was thinking about putting it on my shoulder blade. Ranger?" He patted his arm.

"Forearm probably." While Lester and Tank decided to get tattooed, and Julie hastled Ranger some more about a tattoo my meal came. I managed to choke down half of the thing they called chicken, and ignore the mashed potatoes completely. Of course, I finished the slice of chocolate cake and the little cup of vanilla ice cream.

I walked into the bathroom with the bag Lester had brought. I smiled when I opened the bag and my gun was on top. I changed into the black T-shirt with little difficulty because thankfully he had been smart enough to bring one that buttoned up the front. I wouldn't be able to get a bra on, but it'd do. I debated between the two pair of pants, the jogging pants or the black cargos since I was going to be released. I chose the cargos and rolled my eyes, because I knew that when the nurse saw that I had changed and what I had changed into, I was going to hear about it. My stomach growled as I walked out of the bathroom.

"Can we stop and get some real food on the way to wherever? And speaking of wherever, how come you're staying with your dad?" I asked Julie, my earlier question nagging in the back of my mind. I placed my gun into the drawer of the table next to my bed, so it would be accessible but out of sight.

"I asked mom if it was ok, she said that it was fine if it was really what I wanted…and then continued to mumble that she had no clue why I'd want to, but I think she was kidding. I think." I smiled, I doubt she was kidding.

"Cool. Can you run out and find my nurse for me, tell her I ate?" Julie squinted at me in suspicion.

"You're trying to get rid of me aren't you?" I smiled, she wasn't stupid, but then, I didn't really expect her to be.

"A little bit. But she really does need to know that I ate." I smiled at her and she rolled her eyes before slipping out the door. I was surprised when neither Tank nor Lester followed her out.

"Two men are still in the waiting room," Tank said, and I paused. Tank didn't need two RangeMen to drive them to the hospital.

"Do you have guards on me?" I glared at Ranger.

"Technically, yes, but since I'm also in the room they could just as easily be guarding me." I wanted to jump, and scream and stomp my foot, and tell him that I didn't need him protecting me anymore. But as I opened my mouth pictures of Johnson's mangled body flashed before my eyes. I guess you can never be too careful. But if Ranger's men got mangled guarding me, I'd feel bad. I blew out a breath.

"It's not necessary." There a non-committal answer, no opinion, just a statement of fact.

"I know." He would reply in kind. I shook my head and got on to my point before Julie came back.

"How is she doing really? I know she said she was ok, be she had that look. The look I used to get when a psycho was after me." Lester grinned at me.

"You mean the one where you look like a mad dog, only with out the foaming at the mouth. Oh, but there is the spit." I glared at him. "Well you do spit sometimes."

"I tried talking to her, but she just says she's fine. She was like this last time too, I'm sure she'll be ok."

"Last time was different, she wasn't…" I was cut off as Julie burst into the room.

"I was talking to your nurse, she was in the waiting room. We were by the window and I saw, one of them." She almost hissed the last part. "I recognized him I know it, he was there when they took me."


	17. Chapter 17

_Disclaimer:_ _I don't own any of the characters you recognize, they all belong to the wonderful Janet Evanovich. No copyright infringement is intended._

_A/N:_ _Just before posting Chapter 20, I went through the first nineteen chapters to edit. No plot changes have been made. The editing was for spelling, word choice and continuity. _

* * *

"That's it, we're leaving. Now." Ranger said as he rose from his chair. I didn't pause to wonder about my discharge, I figured I could sort it out later. I stood and slipped the gun into the back of the back of my Cargos and faced Ranger.

"If you send the two guards down to get the SUV, we can take the stairs right down the hall to the third floor and slip out through the side door by the surgical recovery room. We'll still have enough people to box-in Julie."

"Ugh. I don't need to be," Ranger's look silenced Julie and he glanced at me.

"You haven't even left the room babe, how do you know how to get out." I smiled.

"The fire escape route, which also has a small hospital map on it, was posted in the bathroom. From the layout, it seems to be the quickest route out that won't take us through a min door." He raised his eyebrow. Did this man not get it yet? I was finally Wonder Woman to his Batman, I'd even bet that when I was at a hundred percent I could hold my own against him. But I still couldn't beat him.

"You told me to be more aware of my surroundings." Tank sent a text to the two guards with instructions while we grouped around Julie to box her in. We headed to the door just as the nurse walked in. Ranger glanced at her and spoke.

"We'll be leaving now. We don't have the time to wait for a proper discharge." He pulled a business card out of his pocket. "Contact this doctor. Anything that needs to be arranged can be done through him and he will get back to us." He took one look at the nurse's shocked face and gently pushed her aside so we could move out the door. We made our way down the hall and Julie twisted her head to glance at her father.

"See they _aren't _all dead, so can I have my gun back." I swear I saw Ranger role his eyes.

"Julie, you know that it's illegal for you to have a gun until you're 18. Until then it's only for emergencies, and this is only a problem." Julie gave her dad a very pointed glare."

"Yeah, and I'm just sure all of your gun's are legal." Ranger shot her the look he usually saved for employees who were in trouble. Hmm, yet another curious Ranger tid-bit to file away. I'd always guessed Ranger had some false paperwork floating around but I wondered what Julie knew about it. Ranger blanked his face and continued like he'd never stopped.

"I'm hoping this is just someone we missed who was out of the building for some reason, that not all The Governors were in on this. It's going to be bad enough if they know we were the last ones to see them, but it they all knew about what was going on…we're going to be in some serious shit. I'm going to call in some teams to sweep the area, but I don't want any of us staying. The only uninjured one here is Jules so we wouldn't be in top shape." The only uninjured one is Julie?

"What's wrong with you two?" I blurted out and we all knew who I was talking to.

"I have a bullet graze on my gun arm, not a biggie, it'll be good as new in about ten to twelve days." Lester said and I waited. I poked Julie and gestured for her to poke Tank, which she did. He didn't respond.

"Well Tank?"

"I'm _not_ injured." He said, and snapped his jaws shut with such force that I could hear his teeth meet. Julie let out a sound somewhere between a snicker and a cough.

"Mostly it's his pride that's injured. Him and Lester were goofing off in the weight room and Tank managed to crush a finger." I snickered. I always told them that one day their need to prove their manliness would get them hurt. Ranger phoned RangeMan and we made it to the door without incident. Julie I want you to cover with a…"

"Hell no." Ranger gave Julie the look, "I don't care dad. I put up with enough; there is no way you're convincing me to crawl under Kevlar blanket in the Miami heat. Not, gonna, happen." She said, giving her equivalent of the Ranger death glare. Whoa, guess she's not scared of third world countries. To my utter shock Ranger's face softened.

"At least lay on the floor." His face hardened again, "But I'm covering you at first sound of gunfire." She rolled her eyes but nodded as she crawled over Lester's feet to get to the center of the SUV where she had enough room to lie. It was a little cramped, but once Julie moved to the floor it was comfortable enough. I swear that that wasn't supposed to come out like that. I'd never actually make her lay on the floor for no reason. But my thoughts were cut off as Julie sat up. I hadn't even notice the car stop. Ranger leaned over and whispered into my ear.

"You have to be more aware of your surroundings babe." I smiled. Only when the two guards in the front seat didn't get out of the SUV did I turn to look and see where we were.

"Wow, two of your houses in one week." I joked, but it made me think. Had it really only been one week? We walked to the front door in formation, and Ranger punched in the access code letting us in. Since we didn't stop for any food Julie said she would make sandwiches and we all headed into the kitchen. Just as she was getting all the stuff from the fridge Ranger's cell phone rang. He answered it, barked out a few words and hung up.

"He was there alright. Having a bullet removed from his ass." Tank raised his eyebrow, "No Tank, I'm not joking. He's in police custody right now. Julie will have to go down and make a statement later today." She nodded, almost absentmindedly, as she smeared mustard across a slice of bread. He barely had the phone back in the holster when it rang again and he snapped it open.

"Articulate." Well, that was a new one to me.

"_What?_ Are you fucking kidding me?" Ranger was raising his voice _and_ swearing?

"Do they know about the situation…I'll give them fucking security clearance…Someone will bleed for this." By the time he got to the last part his voice was in that cold tone that was worse than the raised voice. "Yeah, Yeah." He snapped into the phone before glancing at it, and throwing it into the wall, smashing into tiny pieces. "Fuck!" He ran his hands through his hair before smacking them into the counter. Throughout the whole phone call, Julie had continued to make sandwiches like it was an ordinary occurrence, only looking up when his palms hit the counter.

"It's fine. I'm home and safe, don't worry about it." She went back to placing chips on each plate next to the sandwich.

"It's not alright damn it!" She moved onto pickles, not looking up. "They know what's been going on, I don't know how hey can expect." She continued working, going to the cabinet, grabbing five cups. Pftt, I probably would have dropped one. She seemed to know exactly what was going on. Well I'm glad someone did cause I sure as hell didn't have a clue.

"What's going on," I whispered to Lester, but obviously Ranger heard because he turned to me.

"I'm leaving."


	18. Chapter 18

_Disclaimer:_ _I don't own any of the characters you recognize, they all belong to the wonderful Janet Evanovich. No copyright infringement is intended._

_A/N:_ _Just before posting Chapter 20, I went through the first nineteen chapters to edit. No plot changes have been made. The editing was for spelling, word choice and continuity. _

* * *

"What?" He was leaving? He couldn't leave right now, his daughter is barely out of the hands of The Governors and he was leaving. "Why the hell are you leaving?"

"Did it sound like I wanted to?" He snapped at me, and I was surprised at the anger in his voice, though I don't know why. He closed his eyes and took a breath, assumedly to calm himself. "I'm sorry. I have no choice, the government is calling me in, and the penalties for breach of contract aren't pretty." Julie handed me a plate with a sandwich still ignoring the conversation. Was this that common an occurrence for her, or was she that withdrawn and Ranger just hadn't noticed

"When do you have to leave?" He took a breath and shook his head.

"Three hours." My eyes widened, three hours. Now I get why he didn't always have time to tell me before he left. He took a bite of his sandwich and nodded his head.

"I don't have to pack; I keep a bag packed in all of my places. Stop eating." I blinked and put down my sandwich. Stop eating?

"Why?"

"We're going to go have lunch at mama's house before I leave." Tank groaned.

"Ranger you cannot be serious." This from Tank, but it sounded distinctly un-Tank like to me.

"Haven't we suffered enough lately?" From Lester, who was making a ridiculously exaggerated face. I didn't get it, what was the big deal it was just lunch. Unless Ranger had a Grandma Mazur?

"What's the big deal?"

"Mama is less than understanding about my job, and it's always worse before and after a mission." Great, the first time I was meeting Rangers mother, and it was pre-determined that she would be in a bad mood. "Jules, call your Abuelita and tell her we'll be there in twenty minutes." She nodded and slipped out of the kitchen. He turned to me.

"Will you try to talk to her while I'm gone? She won't talk to her mother or me, and Rachel absolutely refuses to let her see a therapist. Something about what it would do to her husband's job. Apparently he's in politics. I just think she'd be more comfortable talking to you than one of the guys."

"I'll try, she needs to talk to someone but…" I trailed off and he continued to look at me expectantly. "She had that look, the one that I used to get, and I just, I don't think she's going to talk to anyone."

"But you'll try?"

"Of course. I think that maybe…" I was cut off as Julie walked back to the room, talking even before she was through the door.

"She says to stop at the drugstore and pick up her prescription for her. I also told her I didn't know why we were coming. I figure out a while ago that you always have me call so you only have to listen to her once."

"Tsk tsk, Julie. Lying? What _would_ your mother say?" Lester joked, and Julie smirked back at him.

"Speaking of things mothers wouldn't approve of, I can think of a whole list of things your mother wouldn't appreciate." Jeez, did this girl have something on every guy in RangeMan? She doesn't seem like she'd be afraid to use it either. "She also said that Bisabuela Rosa was there." This time Ranger groaned and I gave him a raised eyebrow.

"She's even worse than Grandma Mazur." I laughed, I couldn't help it, _worse_ than Grandma Mazur. At least I didn't have a 'package' to worry about. I stuck out my lower lip.

"Sure, you'll deal with your insane Grandmother for a meal, but you avoided mine." He gave me a look, with a PG-13 rated version of his wolf grin.

"I'll make it up to you when I get back." Oh boy, what was that supposed to mean? Julie cleared her throat.

"It's a fifteen minute drive to Abuelitas, and we need to stop at the pharmacy."

"Pharmacy, I thought you said drugstore?" Ranger demanded, and I rose my eyebrow again. What was the big deal?

"Pharmacy, drug store, same thing." Julie responded, tapping her foot in mock impatience. At least, I think it was mock.

"No, it's not!" Jesus, he's been raising his voice all day today. "When she says drugstore she means to go to the one on the corner, when she says pharmacy I have to go all the way to Winn Dixie because her drugstore doesn't have it."

"They don't have her prescription?" Julie asked, clearly not believing it.

"It's not actually a prescription. She insists that she needs melatonin to sleep. The doctor has told her to stop taking it, but she swears she has insomnia. If we don't get it for her, she drinks herself to sleep every night until we give it to her." Julie scrunched up her eyebrows for a minute in thought, then rushed into the pantry. A few minutes later she came out holding a baggie of something I couldn't identify.

"Tell her the pharmacy didn't have any, give her this and tell her to stir a tablespoon into hot water, let it sit a few minutes stirring it a couple times, strain it and drink it." She tossed the sealed baggie at Ranger.

"What is this?" He asked her suspiciously, and she shrugged.

"Chamomile Tea, I just dumped it out of the tea bags so she wouldn't know what it was. It sounds like it's psychological anyway. She probably took it for jet-lag and then decided she needed it. Probably cause she's old. Oh, maybe she's a, what do you call those things, a hypno, no, hypochondriac. Maybe she's a hypochondriac."

"She is not a hypochondriac, Julie"

"Oh puh-lease, she burnt her finger and made us take her to the doctor because she thought she had a flesh-eating disease for gods sake." As soon as the words left her mouth her eyes widened and she brought her hand across her mouth. "I-I I didn't," She closed her eyes took a breath and spun on her heel before running out of the room. I looked at Ranger, waiting. He didn't move.

"Go talk to her." I told him, my voice telling him I thought it was obvious that he should have gone after her. He still didn't move.

"And say what?"

"Say whatever Ranger, just talk to her. No wonder she hasn't opened up to you if sitting there is the best you can do!" He looked at the baggie in his hand and shoved it partway into his pocket.

"I'm leaving. When Julie's ready to go Tank will drive the three of you over there to meet us." I watched as he walked out of the room, and seconds later I heard the front door slam. Tank and Lester were both looking at me like I had lost my mind.

"I wasn't wrong," I said to them as I stood to go find Julie, "I wasn't."


	19. Chapter 19

_Disclaimer:_ _I don't own any of the characters you recognize, they all belong to the wonderful Janet Evanovich. No copyright infringement is intended._

_A/N:_ _Just before posting Chapter 20, I went through the first nineteen chapters to edit. No plot changes have been made. The editing was for spelling, word choice and continuity. _

* * *

As I had expected to, I found Julie sitting on her bed. Ok, so I didn't know it was her bed, but the decor seemed to imply it. She wasn't crying, she wasn't pacing, and she wasn't eating a peanut butter and olive sandwich, she was just sitting there. I wasn't sure what to do. I couldn't fix the problem if I couldn't find one. Her eyes moved from a spot on the wall to me, locking eyes.

"We're not talking about this. I'm fine, and if I have to say it one more time, I'll kill whoever asks." Whoa, Mini-Ranger on the defensive.

"Ok, I won't ask then. _But_ how about we have lunch and go to the beach tomorrow?" She gave me a wary look that reminded me of Ranger right before I told him I blew up his car. She however, didn't start to laugh. "No questions, well, none of the questions you don't want to be asked. I'll probably as questions, because you know, I haven't seen you in a while. We should catch up. But no prying, promise." Wow, was I babbling? I haven't babbled in long time. Maybe that's why Ranger didn't want to talk to her. I shook my head. Bad ass military man scared of a sixteen year old.

"We should go," Julie said, as she stood. "My dad is probably freaking out about how long it's taking by now." I winced as she said it, not knowing if she would care that he left.

"He's, uh, not here. He left already and…" She rolled her eyes.

"Told Tank to bring us later, right?" I nodded. "That man has the patience of…of…of a something with no patience." I laughed and she smiled adding, "He's never been a patient person though. I remember abuelita telling me that he used to walk to school, because he thought the bus took too long. Apparently he didn't like how many stops it made, and his was the first one."

I watched her face, especially the eyes, as she spoke. She was completely different than the person I had seen down in the kitchen. Maybe I had read her wrong, maybe she was just as resilient as she tried to make herself seem. I didn't think so, but it was a possibility.

"Either way," Julie said, pulling me out of my thoughts, "We should go. He isn't going to be happy if we're late." I nodded and we headed down to the kitchen where Tank, with his good hand, was arm wrestling Lester.

"Do you two ever quit?" I asked rolling my eyes as Lester slammed the back of Tank's hand into the table.

"If we'd been using the right hand, I'd have won." Tank said as he stood, motioning for Lester to do the same.

"You doing ok, Julie?" The look on Julie's face was priceless, and after giving Lester a look that could kill, she turned and stomped out of the room.

"I'll be in the SUV," she called, and I heard the front slam. God, she really was just like Ranger.

"What'd I say?" Lester asked, sounding so confused that I couldn't help but smirk.

"She told me she'd kill the next person who asked if she was ok. Either you got a pass for being a RangeMan, or you're really lucky Ranger didn't give her back her gun." Despite my lack of effort, the smile faded. "She sounded so…serious too. Like she could kill someone as easy as she could blink. At least that's how she looked to me. Do you think it's me?" I asked Tank seriously, and received only a blank face. "Do you think that I'm just looking for trouble where there isn't any? That I'm seeing what I think should be there?"

Apparently Tank was not in the mood for psych 101 because he just grunted. "Plenty of time to figure it out." He headed for the door and gestured for us to follow, but not checking to see that we did.

We had just pulled out of the driveway when my cell phone rang, the screen flashing neon green with the word "Ranger" solid in bold black font. I debated not answering it, but on the off chance that he was calling to check on Julie, I didn't want to ignore him.

"Hello," I answered. No cutsie answer phrase or sharp greeting, just a safe to-the-point answer.

"Hey babe." Gee, didn't he sound just…normal, like he didn't storm out of the house ten minutes ago. "You guys are already on your way right?"

"Yes." I said, drawing out the word so it sounded more like a hiss. He sighed.

"Listen babe, I know you think there's something wrong, but I can't help her if she won't help herself. Until she's willing to talk to me, getting in her face about it is only going to push her away." I bit my lip and thought about my answer. It was sound logic; I just didn't like the particular sound.

"I've actually been thinking about that, but now's not the time." I said, eyes shooting to Julie. "We'll have a quick chat before you leave."

"Julie sitting next to you?" He asked, and I could hear the smile in his voice.

"No. But just because the bear can hear the waterfall doesn't mean he's standing next to it." I paused as I finished saying it, wondering what the hell had even made me even think it. Ranger still hadn't spoken. "Ok. So bad analogy, you get my point."

"What's your ETA?" I shrugged, and then realized he couldn't see me. I glanced to my left at Tank and whispered 'ETA'. "Four minutes," I told Ranger, and then laughed at how precise it was. Couldn't have just said five.

"I'll see you then. Oh and mama's in a particularly vile mood today, so one gun max and keep it hidden. Tell the guys." I relayed the message and sighed as we pulled into a driveway. We got out and headed to the door.

"Lester," I hissed as he rang the doorbell. "Lester," he was wearing all of his guns in plain sight. "You were supposed to take those off." He made a face as I gestured at his guns and turned back to the car, but it was too late.

"Lester Santos!" A Cuban voice screeched. "What is the matter with you? Coming into my house dressed like…like…some hoodlum! You march right back out to that car and remove those vile things from your person." He moved towards the car leaving me standing in front of Rangers mother, who was giving me an appraising look.

"And you must be Stephanie."


	20. Chapter 20

_Disclaimer:_ _I don't own any of the characters you recognize, they all belong to the wonderful Janet Evanovich. No copyright infringement is intended._

_A/N: I did want this chapter to be a bit longer, considering it's the first one I've posted in a long time, but I liked where this chapter ended, and it didn't feel right adding more to it. Enjoy._

_Just before posting this chapter, I went through the first nineteen chapters to edit. No plot changes have been made. The editing was for spelling, word choice and continuity. (I Promise, this will be the last chapter with this particularly annoying Authors Note added to it.) _

* * *

"And you must be Stephanie." My eyes widened a fraction as I stood there. Everything I had done and been through and I was frightened of this little Cuban lady. It was like the guys being afraid of Julie. Unreasonable, yet true none the less.

"Yes, ma'am."

"Ma'am?" she screeched. Oops, wrong thing to say? "Do I look like a ma'am to you?"

"No…" I trailed off, unsure of what to call her. Mrs. Manoso?

"You may call me momma, just like all the men do." Hmm, momma, probably not. She glanced at my clothing. "You leave my Ranger without a word, and you come back looking like they do when they're working. You don't hold with that nonsense that nonsense of his, do you?" Not sure how to reply I paused. Thankfully Ranger walked up behind his mother, putting his arm around her shoulder and steering her away.

"Now's not the time for the inquisition momma. You can talk _politely_ at dinner." Hmm, apparently he _had_ cooled off, because he had saved me from his mother.

"Don't you tell your mother what to do in her own home. You should be ashamed of yourself." He apologized, even as he continued to steer her into the kitchen. I stepped through the door and stood there awkwardly, letting Julie fly past. Ranger returned and put his hands on my shoulders, guiding me towards his mother.

"Relax querida, she doesn't bite. I promise." I took in a breath as his mother popped up next to us.

"Now Ricardo, you shouldn't make promises you can't keep." She turned her head to me and made two quick biting motions, making sure her teeth connected for the sound effect. I couldn't help it, I started laughing.

"She'd certainly get along with Grandma Mazur." Julie, looking annoyed, turned to Ranger's mother.

"Where's Bisabuela?" She demanded.

"She heard you were coming and left." Ranger said, causing me to look at him. He was lucky I could tell he was kidding, or he would have been in big trouble. "Apparently," he continued, his eyes closing briefly before flicking to me. "There's a viewing at the funeral home, and she just couldn't miss it. Not a word." He added, pointing at me. "Now, time to eat, it's already been an hour, and if I'm going to get to the rendezvous on time, I've only got another hour or so before I have to leave."

"So Stephanie," Ranger's mother said, looking at me strangely. "What exactly is it that you do?"

"Um…" She had a triumphant look in her eyes.

"It's as I suspected," she said, and I looked at Ranger, wondering what in the hell I was going to do. "You're involved with same nonsense that Ranger is, aren't you? I had hoped when he told me you stopped bounty hunting that you had come to your senses." I looked at Ranger questioningly. I was betting he left out the fact that I had left Vinnie's to work at Rangeman. I shook my head, this was ridiculous. Come to my senses?

"With all due respect Mrs. Manoso, all of my senses are perfectly intact. I've been trained to do my job, and it's a job that someone needs to do."

"Somebody needs to hunt down people, interfere with their lives, even kill them." This was not going well, and Ranger was bound to be pissed. Glancing over, he seemed more amused than anything, probably because she wasn't lecturing him.

"No, somebody needs to make sure that people like you stay safe. It's like being a cop, only, more important." I got several laughs at that one, but Ranger's mom still wasn't happy.

"And you think that killing others is the way, how does that make you better than them?" My temper was flaring and at the same time I was panicking. The first time I was meeting Ranger's mother, and I was pretty much declaring war. I caught Rangers eye.

"I may be legally grey, even black sometimes, but ninety-eight percent of the time I'm morally white. The one time I went against my morals I was being blackmailed by the US government. That's the difference, I have morals, and they don't. And to be quite honest with you Mrs. Manoso, I don't appreciate having my integrity attacked." There was a long silence, and I was afraid I had gone too far until she smiled.

"I like this one Ricardo, you should keep her around awhile." What? Had she been testing me? Honest to god, she was lucky she was Ranger's mother…

"No, babe, just a side effect." I know I didn't say it out loud, so his ESP must have been working.

"Do you know how long you'll be gone?" Julie asked Ranger, earning a dirty look from Mrs. Manoso.

"It's bad enough he brings that business into my home, I won't have it at my dinner table too."

"Abuelita, my father is leaving in an hour. I'm very sorry that you would rather it not be discussed at dinner, but I have no other time to talk with him before he leaves." What?

"Is this how you raise your daughter? With no respect for the wishes of her elders?" Mrs. Manoso asked Ranger with a rather disgusted scowl.

"As you know, Mama," he said, managing to make the caring term sound like an insult. "I did very little of the raising."

"No, to busy playing cops and robbers for that." This was not good. Ranger was not going to be happy if he had to leave after a fight with his mother. I'd think. Mrs. Manoso was not going to be happy if I interrupted. I, on the other hand, was not a very happy camper right now.

Hopefully not all family dinners were this hostile. I'm not sure how many more I could sit through. Ranger was glaring at his mother, who was glaring right back. Where did this Ranger come from anyway? I mean, he didn't even look this upset when I blew up his Porsche.

"It's a _job_ mother, which if you'll recall, paid for this house." Oh god. Is it possible to disappear? To anywhere, anywhere but here.

"Do not take that tone with me boy." I was trying to think of what I could safely say when Julie stood from the dinner table and walked out of the room. I signaled to Ranger that I'd go, and as I walked out I could still hear Mrs. Manoso complaining that she hadn't asked to be excused.

I had absolutely no clue where Julie would go, and apparently she had started running once she was out of the room, because she was no where in site.

"Check the garden out back." A voice behind me said, and I turned to see Lester standing a few feet behind me. "And Beautiful, it's always like this when Ranger show's up before he leaves. Don't worry about it." Hmm, if this was usual, I could do with a helping of my nice, normal, family. I snorted, that'd be the day.

"Thanks." I said, before turning out the front door. I'm sure there was a backdoor somewhere, but it would be easier to use the door I knew. Thankfully, Lester was right – sort of – and Julie was sitting on a bench in the backyard looking at a fishpond. Not quite a garden, Lester. I sat down next to her, trying to decide if it was safe to see if she was ok.

"I'm fine," she sighed, "It's just annoying, that's all." Hmm, this was good, she was talking. Asking a question now would either get me more answers, or a huge teenage blowup.

"The fighting?"

"No, jeez, that's amusing. The fact that my father always feels the need to come here first if he can, even though he knows it's only going to cause fights." Maybe my Ranger really was just a big sweetheart after all.

"He's probably hoping that eventually she'll accept it. It's hard not getting along with your mother."

"I don't need that speech. I haven't gotten along with my mother in a long time. My whole life is run around what's best for Ron's career. He's in politics." She almost reminded me of myself at her age. It was too bad, because I really wished she could have better than that.

"Yeah, but she's still your mom. Don't forget that she loves you."

"Yeah, she also loves all the attention that Ron's career brings her. He just announced that he's running for governor." She didn't sound particularly happy about it either. "That means I'm going to have to switch to a private school."

"You might like it."

"Or maybe it'll just be one more thing to resent them for." She sighed, "look, I need to go back inside and talk to my father before he leaves."

"Tell them I'll be back in a minute." She nodded and walked to the back door, leaving me alone in the backyard. Either she was really emotional because of the last week, of this girl had some serious pent-up mommy issues. The whole time she was talking she looked like she was ready to explode. I stared into that water, hoping somehow it would give me the answers I was looking for. I felt a warm body slide next to me on the bench.

"Where's Julie?"

"Arguing with mama about the values of my job," He answered smiling. I wanted to ask him about Julie's relationship with her mother, but we didn't have time for that conversation. "I just. Thank you, Stephanie, really." I smiled, meeting his eyes.

"Always."


	21. Chapter 21

_Disclaimer:_ _I don't own any of the characters you recognize, they all belong to the wonderful Janet Evanovich. No copyright infringement is intended._

_A/N: I know this story has been slow going, but on the bright side it is about finished, I think. To keep the plot the way I have in mind it would have to be longer, but I'm thinking the other part will be a sequel, so four, maybe five more chapters._

* * *

We sat outside in silence for a few minutes before standing and heading back into the house. Julie was sitting on the couch facing Mrs. Manoso who was sitting in her chair. They were still arguing over Ranger's job. Ah, almost like being home.

"Mama," Ranger said, moving towards her seat, "It was good to see you but we've got to get going. I need to get to the airport and I want Julie to come for the ride. I need to talk to you too Steph," he added glancing at me.

"It's just like you, come in here, disrupt my home and then storm off before anything is solved." I could see the muscles in his jaw working.

"I love you too, mama." He said before walking out of the house causing me to shake my head. I looked back at his mother and had no clue what to say.

"It was nice meeting you Mrs. Manoso. Julie," I added, gesturing for her to say goodbye and come out to the car. Where had Tank and Lester gone off to? Julie looked at her out of the corner and muttered a syllable that I'm pretty sure was 'bye' before walking out the door. I shrugged and followed her, hoping I didn't seem rude.

"I don't know why you always have to go there!" Was the first thing Julie said when she climbed into the back seat of the SUV.

"Jules, I'd rather not fight with you right before I leave, too."

"I'm sorry, I wasn't trying to fight." She sounded so sincere too, despite the fact that she rolled her eyes as she said it. "Are you going to bring us by the house, or have Stephanie drive home from the airport?" Ranger glanced at me out of the corner of his eye, not looking entirely happy.

"Jules, I don't know how long I'm going to be gone. I think that I should bring you to your mothers." I hadn't really thought about where Julie was going to go, and from the look on her face, neither had she.

"I don't _want_ to go there! I hate it, I hate Ron's stupid career! It's ruining my life." I couldn't help but smile. Being kidnapping her wasn't ruining her life, but Ron making her switch to private school was. The joys of being a teenager.

"Julie, I'm leaving the country for an undefined amount of time. Your mother isn't going to want you staying alone."

"Stephanie will be there! And Tank, and Lester! You know I'll never get to Bobby's funeral if I'm staying with my mother!" I saw Ranger stiffen at the mention of Bobby's funeral, probably not having thought about how he would miss it until Julie brought it up.

"How about this?" I asked, trying to even out the tension that was rising in the car. "Go home Julie, spend some time with your mother. She was worried about you, and she's glad you're safe. Friday morning, I'll pick you up before Bobby's funeral and you can spend the weekend with me and the guys, assuming they don't have to get back to work." I wasn't sure how long I was planning to stay in Miami, but with Ranger in the wind, there was no reason for me to rush back to Trenton. Especially since I still wasn't entirely sure this whole mess was over and done.

"Fine," she sighed, still not looking entirely thrilled. Ranger looked at me out of the corner of his eye again, paying more attention to Julie in the back seat.

"Tank has everything you're going to need. Codes, keycards and a gate opener, he'll also program your eye and thumb into the scanners." Scanners? I'd seen them in Trenton, but hadn't noticed them here. "For the third floor. It has separate security; I keep all my weapons and other things up there." I'd be curious to know what 'other things' were. "Will you be able to find your way back to the house? There's a GPS." I had noticed the screen that was following our route, but I decided not to say so.

"Of course. I'll be fine. You don't mind if I stay there?" I really didn't think he would, but it was polite to ask. Unlike the time I thought I was cleverly sneaking into his apartment.

"Babe." We pulled into the driveway of a huge house that still wasn't as big as Ranger's was. "Come on babe, you can go with me to talk to Rachel." I made a face that I was hoping came out as more of a grin that a wince, but stepped out of the car anyway. Chatting with a recently scared to death mother was not on the top of my to do list. We followed Julie through the door, and I watched as she stomped past her mother and presumably up to her room. I thought about following her, but this wasn't Ranger's house, and I didn't want to be rude.

"Rachel." Ranger greeted, not looking any happier to be here than me. "Julie, wasn't exactly thrilled about coming back here. It took a lot of convincing, and only on the terms that she gets to go to Bobby's funeral. It's being held down here. Stephanie's agreed to pick Julie up so you don't have to go, then Julie wants to spend the weekend with Stephanie."

"Stephanie, Stephanie, Stephanie," she said turning to me and adding "No offense, to you of course." Her eyes returned to Ranger, "But I noticed you didn't say she wanted to spend the weekend with you."

"I have to leave."

"I don't like this Ric. If anything happens to my girl I'll kill you." He narrowed his eyes. I don't remember things being this tense between the two of them last time I met Rachel.

"Stephanie is more than competent to protect her, and I assure you, scarier people than you have tried to kill me." This was about as much fun as going to his mothers for dinner. I'd almost take The Governors back . . . at least I could _shoot_ them.

"The funeral is at eleven. I could stop by and pick her up around ten?" I asked, trying to sound as nice as possible. "She doesn't have to spend the whole weekend with me if you aren't comfortable with it." But I would sure hate to be Rachel when she told Julie.

"Ten is fine, and keep her the weekend if she wants to stay, I just don't understand why you put up with it, and I hate that my daughter has to." I wanted to comment that Julie had no problem putting up with Ranger, but I bit my tongue. My eyes widened as Ranger headed up the stairs, what was I supposed to say to Rachel.

"I talked to Tank. I know you played a big role in getting my daughter back. I just want you to know that I do appreciate it. This is the second time."

"Of course. How are you holding up?" I asked, not knowing what else to say.

"I'm fine. You seem different." Now I know where Julie learned to evade questions, and actually, that could have been either parent.

"I spent some time making sure I was as competent as I would have liked to believe I was." I stood there in silence for what seemed like forever until Ranger came back down stairs.

"Julie said ten is fine babe, and I wouldn't suggest going up to see her right now, she'd not very happy." He told Rachel.

"I have to leave anyway. Ron is giving a speech this evening. Carina's going to stop by in a little while and stay with Julie until we're back." I bit the inside of my lip. I try to convince Julie to spend some time with her mother, only to have her whisk out the door at the first opportunity. "Come on babe," he said, placing his hand at the small of my back and guiding me to the door.

"I'll see you Friday." I said, waving over my shoulder. I could see some of the tension ease from his shoulders once we were through the door. "Was she ok?"

"She's fine, but when I get back I'm going to have to sit down with Rachel. I know my career hasn't been the easiest to put up with, but she seems especially upset about Ron's career. I'm not sure what can be done, but I think they're going to have to come to some kind of compromise with her."

"I'm sure it will all work out."

"I need to ask you another favor babe. I'm going to call the station, see if Julie's statement can wait until Friday. Can you take her down there for me, I know Rachel will never do it." I frowned, wasn't there some kind of rule that the parent had to be there. Or maybe they just needed to consent. Or maybe, Ranger knows what he's talking about, and I should just agree.

"Of course, we can swing by there after the funeral." I looked at him. "I know you aren't happy about leaving, I'm sorry. Is there anything I can do to help?" I asked, knowing that there wasn't. I may have an unbelievable security clearance thanks to the CIA, but it wasn't earned and no one knew my name. And if they had wanted me, they wouldn't have called Ranger.

"As long as no one is lying, I should be back in two weeks max. I didn't want to say anything in front of Julie because there's always the possibility I'll be delayed. Just, stay here, for a while, if you can. I think Julie would like having you around."

"I'll be here when you get back." I said, as we pulled into a private airstrip. He got out of the SUV and I walked around to the other side, pushing him against it. I leaned forward, pressing against his body, not caring who was looking. I leaned down and softly slid my lips back and forth against his before he deepened the kiss, caressing my tongue with his. I was reluctant to pull away, but when I heard him groan, I knew I had to or we'd both be in trouble. "I'll be here when you get back." I repeated, as he grabbed his pack out of the back. He glanced at me one last time before heading towards the waiting jet. Just before he boarded the plane, he turned to look at me one more time. I couldn't see his expression from this far away, but I waved quickly, wondering if he was going to catch hell for bringing me to the strip with him.

Now I just had to find Tank, and make it through the next two weeks, then maybe I could finally take a vacation. Hopefully.


	22. Chapter 22

_Disclaimer:_ _I don't own any of the characters you recognize, they all belong to the wonderful Janet Evanovich. No copyright infringement is intended._

_A/N: This chapter is kind of short, but that's because it's not very action-packed. It's laying down important information, and setting things up for the sequel. On the bright side, there are only a few chapters left before the sequel, which brings on new bad-guys and Ranger smut!

* * *

_

The drive back to the house wasn't all that long, but in the silence it seemed to drag on forever. Tank was waiting for me at the front gate, and as promised, he had everything I would need. Well, almost everything.

"No beer?" I whined, as he chuckled.

"This is Ranger's house. The only time Ranger ever buys beer is if it's for you. You'll have to run to the store, you know how to find it?" I frowned. It must be a MerryMan, thing, thinking that I would always get lost.

"Yes Tank, believe it or not, I can navigate a vehicle."

"Without blowing it up?" I'd punch him in the shoulder for good measure, but it would probably hurt my hand more than his shoulder. "Oh, and I'm supposed to give you this, too." He held out another card.

"What am I supposed to do with that?" I asked confused, frowning at the card in front of me.

"It's a credit card Bombshell, you buy things with it." I rolled my eyes. No fucking shit.

"I have money Tank."

There was no reason for me to have a Ranger credit card, or a RangeMan credit card, or whatever type of credit card it was. I had my own. It really didn't surprise me that Ranger didn't give it to me himself, he probably knew I'd freak out and decided to leave the dirty work to Tank.

"Bosses orders." I frowned again.

"Your boss, not mine." This time he frowned.

"About that, you know what, on second thought, you can just read the papers he left for me yourself. It would make my life easier."

Papers? Ranger left Tank papers, that apparently had to do with me. I wasn't sure yet if I was happy about that or not. It means that Ranger had wanted me to stay before the issues with Julie came up, but it sounded like he was trying to take care of me again. Not that it was a bad thing, I just didn't need as much help as I used to.

"Fine. Let me see them." He grabbed a folder off the kitchen table, pulling out most of the papers and handing them to me. "And the rest of them? Are those about me, or are they just other papers for you?"

"They're forms… can you just read the papers?" He asked, eyeing me warily. I nodded at glanced down at them.

The first page covered everything I had just gone over with Tank, security for the house, keycards, and the like. When I flipped to the next page, the first thing I noticed was the date at the top.

"Tank, this is dated five years ago?" I think his eye twitched, but I can't be sure.

"That's how long the papers have been sitting in a filing cabinet for. Ranger was waiting for what he considered the 'appropriate time'. Just keep reading."

I skimmed through the first page, with my eyes narrowing in confusion. By the time I had reached the last page, my eyes were wide open with shock.

"But… Five years ago, and why me, Tank this doesn't make any sense." Ranger wanted to make me a partner? I ran searches, not RangeMan.

"He's always trusted in your instincts, but he wanted to make sure you were physically prepared for the job. He could never get you to train with him, so he knew he would have to wait." I shook my head in confusion.

"When he tried to make me run, in the mornings?" Tank nodded.

"Everything is in order, and it will all be legal as soon as you sign these." He pointed to the papers left in the folder. "Ranger made sure of that years ago." I still didn't get it. I mean, I had left, for four years, without a word. If he had done that I would have tore up the papers just to make myself feel better.

"After I left, why didn't he, I don't know, get rid of them, or nullify them or something?"

"He spent a while looking for you, and when we didn't find you, all he could say was that he didn't that type of bad feeling about it, and that you'd be back eventually."

"What type of bad feeling?"

I think I was stuck somewhere in between confusion and denial, with a little twinge of disbelief thrown in. Had he known something was going on? Wouldn't he have said something? When I told him my story? Had he known I was working for, and just not why? He couldn't have known the why. He would have done something. _Would you really have wanted him to do something? All that would have accomplished was proving you still needed to rely on him, _a little voice nagged from the corner of my mind. I told it to shut up, because Ranger had. Not. Known. It was that simple.

"Steph!"

"Huh?"

"You haven't heard a word I've said, have you?" I blinked a couple of times. How long had I been sitting there thinking?

"Yes I did. You said Steph." He sighed at me, and I almost thought he was going to roll his eyes.

"I said, he said he was worried about you, but didn't think you had been kidnapped. He decided that you left of your own free will, and trusted you to come back. It probably helped that Cal was there when you had your blow up with Joe."

"Oh." I said dumbly. I knew he hadn't known. "Tank, I can't just…"

"Yes, you can, it's what he wanted, what he wants." He was giving me a look that I couldn't read.

"Maybe I should wait until he gets back?" _Especially after everything that's happened_ I thought, feeling like I would be stepping into Bobby's place. It hadn't been long enough for that yet.

He shook his head and I didn't know what to say. I knew I would accept it, and I believed that it was what Ranger wanted. Despite that, I couldn't help but feel weird about it. I had been gone for four years, four long years, and everyone still treated me as if I had never left. For the first time in a long time, I felt lucky. Like everything was worth it.

"Ok." I said slowly, "Let me see the papers." I remembered him saying he wanted me to come to work for RangeMan again, but I hadn't thought he meant like this.

"Isn't it a little pre-mature hiring me on in this capacity, without me knowing more about the company's day to day operations and policies? All I've ever done for RangeMan is distractions, surveillance, and searches. I know the company has a much wider scope than that." I said as I read over the contracts.

"Honestly, I would have thought so if he handed you the papers four years ago, with you knowing what you do of our company, but things change. We both know you'd be qualified for this position."

I'd noticed most of the MerryMen talking a lot more since I'd been back, and I found it slightly odd. They were always good with me before, but they still kept to shorter sentences. The only thing that I could come up with is that they had more respect for me now that I had taken initiative to better myself. Sure, maybe it had some very undesirable results, but I had learned a lot in the process. I had grown, and become more capable. I could handle this position, even if I still felt slightly uncomfortable taking it. Until I proved myself to the company, not Ranger personally, I would feel like it was just Ranger trying to help me again. I took a deep breath.

"Do you have a pen?" I asked, and Tank smiled as he handed me one. "Er, one question first actually," I said, thinking about where I currently was. "Where exactly am I supposed to be working?"

"Like Ranger, Lester and I, you would be based in Trenton. The responsibilities that come along with the position would sometimes require travel to the other branches." I nodded, that made sense. But if they wanted me to start right away, would that mean I was supposed to go back to Trenton?

"I promised Ranger I would be in Miami until he got back. Especially for Julie."

"Not a problem. I think we can spend some time getting you acquainted with the company policies and procedures. I'll take you into the RangeMan down here, the set-up and day-to-day running of the company is the same everywhere. I can introduce you to some of the team down here at the same time." I thought about what he was saying, and despite that fact that I tried to block it out, Matson's words flashed through my head. _I know you, you're Manoso's bitch._

"Tank, maybe this is a bad idea. I haven't been working for the company; no one is going to respect me. They're going to think Ranger's woman is stepping in where she doesn't belong." I didn't know what was wrong with me, I hadn't felt this insecure about anything since I had left Trenton years ago.

"That's not true Steph. Just because you haven't been working at the company, and they haven't met you personally, doesn't mean they don't respect you. They know what you did. There are people who have been working for the company for years that wouldn't want to have been involved with Matson. And you were, not for a paycheck or because of a contract. You did it to help one of theirs, and that does earn you respect."

I smiled at Tank, feeling like I had never left Trenton. Like I was just one of the guys getting ready to start another shift at my desk. It was exactly what I had hoped for when I first got back, that they would take me back into their family. Yet here I was fighting it every step of the way, and I couldn't figure out one good reason why.

I picked up the pen before I could change my mind, and signed my name on all the necessary lines. I handed the papers back to Tank as a cave full of bats fluttered around in my stomach. Without warning, I felt a tear slide down my face, and I couldn't stop the crying that followed.

"Bombshell, Steph, what's the matter?" Tank asked sounding genuinely concerned. Through my tears, I couldn't help but see how uncomfortable he looked.

"I miss Bobby."


	23. Chapter 23

_Disclaimer: I don't own any of the characters you recognize, they all belong to the wonderful Janet Evanovich. No copyright infringement is intended._

* * *

I had wrapped my arms around a completely uncomfortable, and completely understanding Tank, and cried for about five minutes. By the time I was done, I was so uncomfortable I didn't even want to be in the room anymore. Crying on other people had never really been my thing. Well, it had, but not in a long time.

"I think I'm gonna go grab that beer." I said, pulling away and turning around quickly enough that he wouldn't have time to look me over. I felt like I was moving on autopilot as I picked up the keys and walked out the door. It wasn't the best exit, or conversation stopper, but it was the best I could do.

I had no idea where the nearest liquor store was, but checking the gas station I had seen around the corner seemed like a far easier option than searching through the GPS. Lucky for me, I wouldn't even have to ask for directions since the towers of beer by the door would more than do the trick. I paid for my beer, and considered not going back to the house before deciding it wouldn't be worth the trouble it would cause. After everything that's happened in the last week, best not to worry people unnecessarily.

Besides, I was sure Tank would take my desire not to talk for exactly what it was. I should be so lucky. I got out, clicked the alarm, and made it two steps into the house before being greeted by Tank.

"Did you want to talk?"

"No." I answered shrugging, hoping the fact that he looked uncomfortable meant the conversation would be quick to end. Unfortunately karma had other ideas.

"Its normal you know. We've both been there before." Why me? It's possible I liked the Merry Men more when they didn't talk as much.

"It's not my first time at this rodeo. I know it's normal. That doesn't mean I have to like it."

"Talking helps. If you want to talk."

"Ya know. I did have something I wanted to say. I've decided that if Julie doesn't want to talk about it right now, far be it from me to make her." Another subtle hint. Better make it obvious just in case. "Beer?" I asked, blatantly changing the subject. He took the offered beer, holding up something of his own.

"You forgot this."

"I didn't forget it. I left it here." I'm not sure which part of 'I have my own money' was difficult to grasp, but apparently I needed to be clearer. "I don't want, or need it, and I have no intention of keeping it. Should I find it in my wallet, my initial instinct would probably be to shred it." He blinked, probably wishing my ability to take care of myself made me more rational and easy to deal with.

"Its standard procedure for all RangeMan employees to have a company card."

"I don't remember having one when I ran searches?" I asked, wondering if that had been another of the rules I'd skirted through one of my hour long rants. He gave me a wary look, shrugged, and handed me another beer. For now, I could live with that answer. It had been a long week. The only things I needed were a hot shower, a beer, a peanut butter and olive sandwich, and possibly a shrink. Not necessarily in that order.

Once he realized that no, I really didn't want to talk, the evening passed much quicker. My beer induced buzz was made even better once I realized Ranger had a copy of Ghostbusters in his movie collection. I had to wonder if like the books, they were Julies, because I would just love to see Ranger watching Twilight. I almost jumped when I heard my phone vibrate on the table.

"Hello." I didn't get many calls from unfamiliar phone numbers. Especially at ten at night.

"Hello? Ms. Plum?"

"Yes. Who is this?" The voice was unfamiliar as well, and if I wasn't mistaken, it had been a Florida area code.

"My name's Carina. I stopped by to stay with Julie, Rachel didn't want her alone. It's just, I have to pick my daughter up, I'm already late and they aren't home yet. Julie said I should call you."

I'm so glad I convinced Julie to spend the day with her mother. I'm sure it was quality bonding time for the two of them. I made a noise of disgust that I hoped Carina didn't think was meant for her. One day, we'll all get a nice long nap. And probably an almost lethal bar concoction named after us. Like 'The Cluster Fuck' or the 'Why Me'.

"I can be there in 20 minutes, 15 if there's no traffic." I disconnected, not worrying that it probably seemed rude. There was nothing else that needed to be said. I couldn't get there any quicker, and I wasn't going to leave Julie home alone all night.

"Am I the only one who thinks this is ridiculous?" I asked Tank, pressing my palms against my eyes. "I mean your daughter is kidnapped, held hostage, almost killed, and you can't even spend five fucking minutes with her?" I took a deep breath, and remembered I was talking to Tank not Rachel. "Sorry Tank."

"No worries. You want me to go with you?"

I thought about it, and was slightly surprised to realize that I really did want him to go. If he was there, it was likely there wouldn't be to much serious conversation needed on my part. I was pretty sure that one more straw tonight would be the one to break my back. I knew someone needed get her to open up, but if I tried tonight, the way I was feeling, it couldn't lead to anything helpful.

"If you don't mind. I know it's awful, but I'm kind of hoping you'll make a good conversation buffer. I'm worried about what will happen if I need to talk tonight." Tank nodded, not looking at all bothered.

"Normally I wouldn't say anything, but normally I don't have Rangers daughter in the car with me..."

"And we've both been drinking." I finished for him, thinking that if worse came to worse and something happened, I really didn't want to explain to Ranger why I was over the legal limit driving with Julie. "Maybe you should call and have someone from Rangeman pick us up. No way they're going to get her alone."

Julie may not be my daughter, but I cared about her. I also didn't like 3rd world countries. And RangeMan or not, the traitorous little dweeb had proved you could never be to careful. And I was in no mood for another week of drama. God bless Ranger, because I have no idea how he does it. If they'd tried to send me off to a jungle after everything that just happened, I'd have stamped myself traitor for them. I stood, snapping out of my thoughts as Tank hung up the phone.

"There's a guard on duty at the foot of the drive. He's going to take us over and the office is going to send a replacement over." I followed Tank outside, and hopped into the back seat of one of the companies standard issue SUV's. Traffic wasn't bad, and the driver wasn't chatty, making for an almost enjoyable ride over. If it weren't for the nagging paranoia I'd be golden.

The ride didn't take long, but Carina bolted out the door almost the second we pulled in. Had I been less tired, less worn-down, and had less alcohol in my system, I would have found it odd that she didn't stop to say hi. I definitely would have found it suspicious when she left tracks and a layer of smoke on the street in front of the house when pulling away. My suspicions would have been confirmed when I walked in the house. Instead I was thrown completely off guard.

"Hello again Stephanie." I wanted to scream. This could not be happening.

"Not fucking TONIGHT!" I shouted at him, not caring that I sounded like a lunatic. This wasn't fucking fair. I let my eyes roam the room, and found Julie tied to a chair in the corner. At least she appeared uninjured, and Matson didn't have a weapon in his hands. Two points for me. Tank walked in behind me, and I could almost feel rather than see as he went for his gun, and stiffened realizing he didn't have it. But it reminded me that I had mine, and before Matson had finished laughing, I shot him in the chest, adding a few extras just to be safe.

I don't know what kind of moronic plan he had in that brain of his, but I was thrilled he'd made it so easy. I just wished it had been any other day. It was going to make so much extra paperwork, and I already wanted a nap.

"I'm going to get a knife," Tank said, nodding at the ropes holding Julie. I walked over and pulled the gag out of her mouth, hugging her awkwardly in the chair.

"Well thank you." She gave a small snort, "If my father would have just done that to begin with, we wouldn't be having this problem right now." God, this girl wasn't going to need A shrink, she was going to need a TEAM of shrinks.


End file.
